XPost: sci.physics, soc.college.admissions   
   From: akohen@xenon.stanford.edu   
      
   If you understood Feynman in high school (which many still don't fully   
   comprehend) you have no business attending college.   
      
   Drop out immediately.   
      
   Go wind surfing.   
      
   Startup a very successful company, if you must, and retire in your 20s.   
      
   You certainly don't need advice from mere mortals.   
      
   Abe   
      
   "George Orwell"  wrote in message   
   news:357877f29c5b0c98b30e9bf9f339d73e@mixmaster.it...   
   > Ill have to start out with some of my history for this to make any   
   > sense at all.   
   >   
   > A little over 3 years ago, in my sophomore year of high school, I   
   > decided to start educating myself again.  My background up to that   
   > point consisted primarily of mathematics up through differential and   
   > integral calculus, and a bunch of recreational programming experience   
   > in Basic, and recently at that point, C.  This was, of course, not   
   > learned in school.  My father had been teaching me math from an early   
   > age, and I had read about it and done recreational stuff with it while   
   > grade school was going on.  Attempts to get the public school system   
   > to help with it were tried, but to little avail.  I had been skipped   
   > ahead before, but didnt learn much more than I was learning previously   
   > and had problems with the workload.   
   >   
   > Anyway, it was about that time that I started reading the Feynman   
   > Lectures on Physics.  My previous background with physics pretty much   
   > consisted of qualitative high-school level stuff, along with a few   
   > basics -- Newtons Laws, the law of gravitation, Coulombs Law, and   
   > conservation of energy and momentum.  I was startled to find out how   
   > much I didnt know.   
   >   
   > After a while, I finished off the Feynman Lectures, and wasnt quite   
   > sure what to do next.  I ended up studying mostly chemistry, which   
   > suddenly made a lot more sense with some knowledge of basic quantum   
   > mechanics.  I also checked out some stuff on general relativity and   
   > quantum field theory, the latter of which I am still struggling with   
   > today, but definitely making progress.  I also struggled for a long   
   > time trying to grapple with the measurement problem, with brought me   
   > into contact with some information theory.  Needless to say, I am still   
   > not comfortable with that today, either.   
   >   
   > In the meantime, I churned through high school and hated it.  But I did   
   > my work, which was more than enough in the small, rural, underfunded   
   > high school I was attending.  I graduated with a GPA of 3.98, an SAT   
   > score of 1600, and an ACT score of 35.  I took all the AP tests in   
   > calculus, physics, and chemistry, and got a five (the top score) on all   
   > of them.   
   >   
   > I wound up only applying to a state university, mainly because I was   
   > getting tuition free, because of pressure from my mother, and because   
   > I never really had any idea what I wanted to do anyway.   
   >   
   > So far, I have been in college for a semester and change, and other   
   > than the increase in personal freedom, Im finding it too much like   
   > high school.  I took multivariate calculus and the second semester of   
   > introductory calculus-based physics and didnt learn one damn thing.   
   > Most of my complaints were met with incredulity, and I didnt push it   
   > very hard.  I ground through as I always have, and my GPA from last   
   > semester was a 4.0.   
   >   
   > But its another semester, and Im still not learning anything in   
   > classes, and Im pretty sure that Im horribly wasting my time.  Can   
   > anyone advise me on what to do to put a stop to this madness?   
   >   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)