Welcome to LessWrong (For highschoolers)

1. Hello! I'm Allison, 16, a Junior in high school.

2. Yes, I've tried to enhance my education.. I mean, my GPA is 3.6, so I don't think I fit in with the LessWrong community very well. I'm not gifted with a natural born intelligence. I'm not saying I'm stupid, I'm just saying I'm not a genius and have to work pretty hard what comes easily to others. I struggle in math at school, despite being interested in it. I'm a thespian, so I'm fairly right-brained. But even though school is challenging for me, I also sometimes find it boring. And as I like learning, but not learning boring things, I've turned to the Internet for knowledge. This Christmas, I'm getting some textbooks found on the LessWrong textbook recommendation page. I try to independently study quantum mechanics (albeit largely unsuccessfully), philosophy, and probability theory.

3. Heh. Well, my family, none. They're devoutly religious. I'm not. They don't know... I'm sort of a closet atheist. And yes, I know I probably shouldn't care what other people think of me, and just tell my family that I'm not religious. But I do care. So for now, I'm keeping silent. For the longest time, because I've been raised in a highly religious environment, I had no friends in real life who were rational/philosophical. BUT. This year I've had the pleasure of meeting two great people who have challenged my thoughts on philosophy, and have helped me to refine and develop my views on the subject into what they currently are. Also, they're fun pals to chat with.

4. I'm considering being an actor, or possibly a scientist, if I can wrap my mind around the material. I'm not really sure at the moment. I like philosophy, but I can't really make a career out of majoring in philosophy. Although it would be the most interesting road to poverty.

5. Thiel Fellowship? Not sure what that is.

6. http://lesswrong.com/lw/b9/welcome_to_less_wrong/4heq

Also, sorry if this is an extremely long post.

1. I'm 17, a senior in high school.
2. I read a lot of nonfiction on my own when i have time, but lately I almost never have time. I've also learned a ton from doing competitive debate, though I'm not sure it's made me a better rationalist - I'm planning a post on this after I finish applying to college.
3. My family and friends tolerate my interest in rationality, and say "that's really cool!" whenever I explain things, but I haven't been able to convince them to read the Sequences or even the occasional post. My best friend learned Bayesian statistics for science fair and loves philosophy and debate - he'd be a fantastic rationalist if he wasn't Catholic. I'm working on that.
4. I take seriously the argument for giving what we can, and intend to go into a high earning career so I can donate what I can to charity (probably x-risk reduction). I haven't mentioned this before on LessWrong, because without a concrete plan for how to achieve it it seems like an applause light. I would love to talk with someone (CarlShulman?) about how best to do this, because I'm really not sure.
5. Nope. I learn well in an academic environment, and I still have a lot to learn.

As for the other things you suggest in your post: there are no meetups where I live, and I would love to just talk with rationalists occasionally. I've read all the Sequences, though I still have trouble with the quantum physics one, and I would also be interested in sharing tips on getting the most out of high school.

See also my posts.

1. 18, senior in high school.
2. I've been devouring non-fiction books from my local library, usually reading about science and philosophy. I used to be interested in a lot of pop-science and philosophy (Kaku, Dawkins, Greene, Hawking, etc.) a few years ago, but now I'm interested in work on A.I, cognitive science, morality, etc., mostly thanks to LessWrong.
3. Not many. I have a few friends who are somewhat interested in science and philosophy outside of academia, but practically no one I know is interested in rationality. Pity.
4. I'm working on that. I'm interested in neuroscience and evolutionary biology.
5. Nope.
6. Here it is.

1. I'm a high school senior.
2. I read extensively outside my school curriculum-mostly books recommended by rationalists/atheists here and on other similar sites. I've also read a few "soft" science books such as those by Hawking, Ridley and so on.
3. Less than five in my grade. My school is fairly competitive and mostly composed of top students from other schools so there are intellectually curious people here.
4. I'm considering economics or engineering as a career. I like physics too but have been lagging behind lately- so maybe I'm not career material in that field.
5. Never heard of it before today, probably because it is a US-centric thing and I'm from outside the States. Visited the site and feel it doesn't apply to me.

1. 17- Junior/Senior (third year of school. Have enough credits to graduate this year) (Trying to decide if I want to graduate early)
2. I've been going to the library and maxing out the number of books I can check out. More recently, I've joined LW.
3. Family = none. School = some people who are semi-philosophical but not very LW rational.
4. I've always thought it was more important to know what I want to do rather than where I want to go. That said, I'm either going to try to directly contribute bringing about the singularity by research or help by donating (and maybe trying to reform education).
5. You betcha! I can apply for three years and that's what I'll do until I get in.
6. This seems so long ago

1. Make friends with people like you.

This.

I was lucky in that my high school had a program that wasn't a totally miserable waste of my time, but even in there most of the vaguely ambitious kids become ambitious kids at different times, get lonely, and fizzle out.

Primates need friends.

Would anyone be interested in a weekly or biweekly Google+ hangout? I'd set one up if like, 3 people felt like joining.

Edit: So we're doing this. Any preferences on days?

Also, please join this group: http://groups.google.com/group/lesswrong-highschool?hl=en

1. My name is Matt, Graduated 1.5 years ago.

2. I have always studied my own interests and tend not to pay to close attention to what my teachers were asking the class. this often forces them to ask me questions just as often as I question them which usually sets us up as having some kind of discourse which leads to mentor-friendship. I quickly learned if the appearance of your intellect is large then you can usually form a friendly relationship with your teachers and they wont fail you if you put in a modicum of effort. I never really worried about my GPA in high-school and carried an SAT study book around about a week before my exam to force myself to study and absorb some of the carbon atoms through diffusion while I slept on the book. Somehow I got a good score and ended up at a nice cost effective CSU that people tell me is one of the best in the state. In college my GPA has been a good letter grade or so higher than high school but it feels like I'm doing a ton less work so I just applied for a few transfers to top tier schools because being lazy and getting accepted to good schools is what currently keeps my family supplying me with funds. Eliezer was the first writer to ever draw me away from the endless super-stimuli of the internet long enough to make me feel bad about not being more altruistic. Once I met him and saw how overworked you guys are compared to my lazy lifestyle I started a fun plan to hopefully be able to supply SIAI and myself with useful amounts of capital till I am out of school which recently has taken a $400 hit after initial successes. I will persist as long as I can delude myself into the sunk cost fallacy however so don't worry too much about me :)

3-4. My family is amazing and I would give anything to be able to pay for their cryonics payments today but right now we are still trying to put my brothers and I through school. Once I graduate and can put my engineering degree to work I hope I can work with my father who has a work ethic that I have previously been able to copy in his presence and convince them to let me pay for their cryonics as well as continuing to hobby in coding and supporting SIAI through the primary unit of caring.

5. I'm not 20 yet, so I will send in an application when the next round comes around.

6. I never really felt like I needed to introduce myself to LessWrong, I felt like I had found an overbearing set of grandparents the instant I found the place and they seem a lot more open-minded than my original set who I still love deeply and will miss for as long as I live.

I felt like posting on this thread mainly because young people who aren't as lazy as me are great assets to LessWrong and I want to say that I'm extremely proud of your ability to focus in High School and offer my personal advice to any who seek it on anything. If your looking for general High School advice, I suggest you do not under any circumstances go after a Marine's girlfriend and try to make as many friends(or optimize for charisma) as possible like our dear wedifrid suggests below.

1. 17, senior.
2. Not when thinking about it that way, though recreational research in pop sci, apologetics, and epistemology have gotten me to the point where I'm much more knowledgeable in those areas than my average classmate.
3. None in my family, and one in my school--the calculus and Bible teacher, very into apologetics. We argue for ~45 minutes every Tuesday thanks to my school's shuffling schedule.
4. Highest paying career I can attain, don't know what yet. Whatever school I can enter that gets me to the career.
5. After reading the winners of the grants and noting that they have absurd accomplishments, no.

Er, I'm not new, but I assume this is for high schoolers regardless of how long they've been on here? That seems most convenient, at least.

1. 16, junior
2. Eh, not really. Nothing focused.
3. Not a one, so far as I know.
4. My plan is to get a bachelor's in computer science or the equivalent, save money by continuing to live with my mom, and then go to an art school.
5. No

deleted

I graduated about a week ago, but I'm in Australia, so I'm going to sneak in here anyway.

1. I'm 17. I graduated year 12 last week.

2. To enrich myself, I chose to do the International Baccalaureate (IB), which is an international curriculum far more rigorous than the Queensland one. That was a great decision. I also attended the National Youth Science Forum, an event for Australian high school students. This was the most amazing fortnight of my life: the ridiculous level of intelligence of the participants made it incredibly entertaining.

3. My dad's fairly rationalist, thanks to his business education. The kids who did the IB with me were far more philosophical than average, and I got to discuss all kinds of rationality stuff with them.

4. I'm applying to Stanford in California, and to a Science course at ANU (the Australian national university).

5. Holy crap, that is the coolest thing I've ever seen. I am totally applying to that.

At risk of other-optimizing:

How To Get The Most Out of High School

Take as many AP tests as you can. (in the U.S., at least. I'm not sure what the international equivalent is). Take AP tests even in subjects you haven't taken in school. You get credits towards college, it looks impressive on a college resume, and you get to go at your own pace. Specifically, microeconomics is very easy to teach yourself and very useful.

Take as many science and math classes as you possibly can. If your school limits you to one or two science classes simultaneously, go and talk to your counselor. If you make enough of a nuisance of yourself, you can usually get what you want - and no matter what you want to major in, foundations in science and math are important. If you do poorly in math/science classes, try doing all your homework three times - the day before the material is covered in class, the day after the material is covered in class, and again before the test.

Join clubs/sports teams. Even if you're introverted (especially if you're introverted), you need regular IRL social interaction to be happy. If you're at all athletic, sports are an automatic boost in social status in addition to being relaxing and sometimes fun. If you don't think you're at all athletic, you probably haven't found your sport yet - I have no hand-eye coordination, so I run cross country. Debate teams are also a great place to find people with the 'taking ideas seriously' gene, though their effect on rationality is mixed at best.

To make time for the above: figure out which classes you care about. Do your homework for those classes during your other classes. Shakespeare isn't really my thing, so I usually finish Physics during English. Gamify things: assign yourself challenges (get through ten math problems in History without making the teacher suspicious) with rewards for finishing them (no math homework tonight!).

Figure out what skills you are learning that you will want in real life, and actively optimize them. The ability to write coherently (and quickly) is important even if you plan to be an engineer, as is the ability to read and absorb stuff quickly. The ability to solve math problems without making stupid sloppy errors is equally important, though I haven't figured out how to optimize this yet. Also, school is a built in opportunity to practice explaining singulatarianism/transhumanism/cryonics to other people. It doesn't matter if people think you're weird, you won't see any of them again anyway after you graduate. Practice different approaches to explaining ideas you are passionate about and see which one gets the best response.

Apply for scholarships. There's tons of them out there, and many of them don't get enough applicants. It's free money, which you will need if you intend to attend a good college (especially in the United States.) And you should plan to attend a good college, unless you have an absolutely brilliant idea: graduates from expensive big name schools earn lots more than from cheaper schools.

1) I'm a senior in high school in the USA; I'm 17.

2) Outside of school, I've done summer programs, the most recent one was studying creative writing at the California State Summer School of the Arts (also known as CSSSA)- we board down in Valencia for four weeks and work with professional writers. If anyone's interested in writing, it's an amazing program. There's a math and science equivalent- COSMOS, which is supposed to be pretty good. I'd probably be going to that next summer if I hadn't got a job. At school, I've been taking as many APs as are allowed by my family. My school's pretty academically challenging, with high level courses if you're willing to put the effort into getting them.

3) Erm... I don't know any other rationalists, but I am taking a Philosophy class, and it's pretty popular. My dad's pretty philosophical. My friends aren't rationalists, but we have debates about cryonics all the time since I introduced them to the topic. I linked them to this site, so they might show up eventually, hopefully.

4) I'm hoping to major in Computer Science with a minor in either Economics, Film or Writing. Though that might be subject to change, but right now it seems pretty set. I applied to a wide range of schools, most on the East Coast or in California. MIT would probably be my top choice.

5) Not old enough, not sure if I want to.

6) Here you go

1) I'm 16, a sophomore in high school.

2) I thought that LW counted as enhancing my education, so a lot of that (good for disguised procrastination, but procrastination can be productive!) Also I go to a Music and Arts academy each weekend, where I learn music theory/history and volunteer. In the summer I want to volunteer for a professor at UCSB doing independent research, so I'm working on contacting a few. Besides that, nothing college application-noteworthy. In high school: I'm taking 3 AP classes and English 110 this year. In the summer I'll take two city college classes, and in junior and senior year I'm doing the IB program (6-7 classes for two years).

3) My parents are highly educated and nicely skeptical of the world, so maybe rational, just not rationalists. I have a good friend who competes in the USAJMO and enjoys talking to me about what I read here, except has no interest in this actual site. I'd call him my chavruta.

4) Perhaps psychology? Or chemistry? Preferably a science. Living in academia for the rest of my life would be great. Right now I'm looking at the UC schools and a few private ones (Stanford, Ivy League), but I haven't researched yet.

5) Ooh, I don't think I want to skip college. I don't have any good ideas right now, do you know where I can find some?

6) My intro post

1. 17, senior year in a German high school.

2. Currently taking the ml and ai classes. I also participated (and will continue to do so) in various camps and courses, for example about physics. Moreover, I very successfully participate(d) in competitions about natural sciences ("very successfully" means twice on a national level).

3. I know about a few people at school with this sort of "spirit" though none of them reads lw.

4. I'm not quite certain, although it'll probably be something in the natural/comp science range.

5. Nope.

6. Don't have one.

1. 17, F, a senior in high school.
2. Yes. I think seriously about life and philosophy. I read things and I try to find people who are studying mathematics or physics to encourage me. I cultivate my appreciation for science and mathematics on a daily basis yet struggle with studying for my math & science classes. I take the initiative to contact people and I've interviewed scientists on behalf of school publications. I spent my summer participating in research at university (though I did not really apply much thought to the process). My current project involves refining the act of learning. I am searching for the appropriate methods and resources to learn the things I am interested in since I find high school very irritating.
3. The internet is the reason I know intellectually-attractive people at all. I am very much on the search for mentors and friends in meatspace who are just as intellectually attractive as, say, LW users & their respective profiles.
4. I would like to be some sort of scientist, artist of knowledge, philosopher, thinker, whatever! I am considering things like physics, artificial intelligence and cognitive science. It would be nice to get into the University of Chicago. But I might end up at Rutgers University.
5. I might.
6. My introduction is kind of lame.

Nice idea. Be careful that "3. (if we are in a public school) Looking for ways to game the system (because we're not learning much in it)." is quite US-specific. Both in the way to game the system (since systems are very different from place to place), and in the relative quality of public/private schools (and the absolute quality of public ones). It may have changed since my time (almost 15 years already... time flies fast) but French public high-school used to be interesting places in which you could learn a lot if you wanted to.

Why are so few people interested in applying for the Thiel scholarshp? I feel that it's obviously more educational than going to school. Are you so afraid of not getting it that you don't bother applying?

1.Hello, I'm Anna Zhang, a high school freshman and a thirteen year old. I'm sort of new to rationality, and only started on this site half a month ago. It's nice to meet everyone.

1. I homeschool, (since I live in China right now), and whenever I have time, I try to learn new things. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of time, because my family came up with the brilliant idea to have me take classes both for homeschooling and at the local Chinese school, and not just select courses either. It's very tiring, and I don't get much time to learn about rationality, though this site helps a lot. 3.My entire family is devoutly Buddhism, and I...am also? Very uncertain here...ahahaha. (Mostly because I keep getting confused after listening to a lecture by my uncle, who is the closest to being rational.) I live in a university, since my genius of a sister got into university at the age of thirteen, so naturally, the school drags my mom to China. For good measure, I was dragged along also. However, this means I'm in contact with some extremely philosophical people who are always criticizing something or another. I don't like them that much. 4.I'm considering some universities in Canada, England and America, and some rather varied careers. I'm still a freshman, so I'm having a very hard time deciding. My teachers say that if I can get my Chemistry (and psychology) grades back up to 95%, I can go wherever I want, but it's hard. I'm very bad with Chemistry, but I sort of want to be a psychiatrist/surgeon/doctor, but if those don't work out, librarian, teacher, psychologist or professor could work too. I don't want to teach traditional Chinese literature like my family wants me to, so I'm considering these options instead.
2. I'm sorry...I don't really understand the concept of a Thiel Fellowship.
3. Sorry, I don't really know how to.

1. I'm a 15, a sophomore in high school
2. I love to read nonfiction books. I read books about topics I'm really interested in, and I use the internet to explore smaller interests
3. None that I know about
4. I am considering starting businesses or nonprofits, or working at Leverage Research once I fulfill their hiring criteria :)
5. I have to look into the Theil Fellowship more, it was suggested to me once before
6. Found it

Message me about joining the facebook group.

Also, why isn't the linking syntax the same for comments as articles?