Dropping Out Of High School

I am both afraid of the consequences that may arise within the path/decision I am about to take in my academic career and yet thrilled about it. I want to quit school and it's not because I'm lazy. I am in fact a student who has a lot more As, than Bs and Cs in the 9 subjects he's doing. I'm just bored of spending 8hours of my life everyday learning about things that do not intrigue me. Mind you 60% of that time is spent chit-chatting with some of my classmates because Mr & Mrs Dickhead are too "exhausted" to teach today. I do not despise education, I just don't find the necessity of learning something that does not collaborate itself with what I aspire to be: a writer. English class, maybe. I took some time to analyse the reasons why I actually hate school so much and they all boiled down to the fact that I was not a sociable person.

I decided to change schools last year and socialize more. I began to notice how much I was now looking forward to school, the results became more apparent this year when I actively started approaching new women, having more friends and a good relationship with my educators. But that has merely only changed the negative attitude I had toward school. The real reason, I guess, is that

*I feel like school is wasting my time. I could spend 8 hours of my time each day learning the ins and out of literature instead of solving X, and Y using Z formula and write about how much I hate school instead. I could work as a waiter and grant myself the necessary documents needed by the bank to open up a business loan. If successful, by the time they walk out of university and enter the world of wage-slavery I'd probably be a self-made millionaire or earning more than what they went to school & university for from my businesses.

I have delved back and forth with this conversation with a lot of people I hold of high regard and those less so too and they've all tried to talk me out of it and convince me to take the "safer" route. My mothers words of prediction have stayed on my mind:

"Your thoughts are going to drive you to a point where you're going to quit school and I am not going to talk you out of it, it's your choice. And once you do quit school and start to learn independence, I want you to know that you'll need a new place to stay. Have a clearer perception of the world you want to be in. And if you survive - good. If not, and you come back knocking here, you're going back to high school at the age of 20 something", clearly she too doesn't support the idea.

I thought that moving in with my brother who's also a mentor of mine, I'd maybe change my mind of earning myself a "high school dropout" title on my name. Which I have, only for a period of months only to realize how unhappy I am with the life that I am living. - He too says I'll have to move out and find my own place to stay "Mommy's orders, China." which I guess is completely fine with me .... I've long since been discouraged and unable to find a living soul that can talk to support me on the journey that I want to take. I took a strange look at a cousin of mine who has quit school a year ago because "campus life is crazy" and I really don't want to end up like him, sure he's enjoying the privilege of not being a productive person who spends most of his days sleeping or watching movies on television and depending, on a financial and nutritional base on his sisters whom themselves have completed school to slave in something less than what education was supposed to grant.
And with the high unemployment rate and weak currency I am less likely than I am likely to find a job in this country (South Africa), being a waiter too is apparently a difficult to find job. If I do find a job, say working as cashier. I am looking at a pay of R3000 about 285USD. A budget of 1000 Rand in groceries. R500 in transportation. R1500 in apartment rent. And no pocket money. Not much, but better than a monthly allowance from your loving parent. Many of my family members, my mother's friends have looked up on me, made examples to their kids about me as a way of inspiring them or whatever. Delving in this journey with a high volume of doubt is what puts so much fear in me, but the thought of independence excites me. A lot of people are going to be disappointed, but I am doing this for me, I guess.

I'd really appreciate some guidance/opinions from teenagers themselves who are still in school and everyone else in between.

Do not drop out of HS. It's honestly silly. HS is a very short period of time, while you're very young. The odds of you doing something productive to make yourself a millionaire are remote. I don't care how smart you think you are. And if you're that smart, you'll still be that smart in 1 or 2 years.

There is very little that an extra year or 2 of HS will cost you, and a huge loss of both opportunity (social, and academic - having different subjects forced upon you can open up your interests in directions you'd never have looked yourself) and reputation (a HS dropout is a massive red flag in about every sphere, both personal and professional).

Finish HS. if you don't want to go onto post-secondary, that's fine.

Finish high school dude...for real lol

I had a good friend for a while who dropped out of high school to be a writer and a poet. He was a very intelligent guy, but just couldn't stand know-it-all teachers whom he quickly deduced he was far more intelligent than.

He went on to have a string of moderate business successes that all ended in major failures, and has had a falling out with just about everyone he's become close to over the years, including me, which is why I say a "friend for a while" (and I've had perhaps 3 falling outs in my entire life... I'm not someone who falls out with people). The main reason why is because he's been living hand-to-mouth since dropping out of school, and came to view everyone around him as a meal ticket that he needed to siphon off funds from as soon as possible before they dropped out of his life to go onto bigger and better things. As such, he self-destructs his own relationships with his own self-fulfilling prophecies of failure and abandonment. Last I checked, he was still one of the smartest people I know, and he still swings between periods of feeling like this time he's going to pull off his great coup, and feeling like life has utterly bested him yet again.

The main value of high school and early college is not the education itself, but the training that teaches you to be steady, to delay gratification, and to stay the course. I nearly dropped out myself several times, and even though I can count on one hand the valuable lessons I remember from high school, I'm not sure where a kid with crap social skills, fatalistic depression, and an inability to get hired anywhere other than a department store would've ended up.

The biggest estimation I think that most people who will drop out of high school don't properly make is how gigantic a deal money becomes when your only easy path there is a minimum wage job or depending on Mom and Dad (who will quickly grow tired of supporting a dropout and urge you to go get a minimum wage job). It's all but impossible to do anything great when you're exhausted from working 6 days a week earning your $8 an hour (or whatever it is now). Read some of the research on how poverty affects the brain; your thinking just becomes crap, weighted down with constant opportunity cost calculations about whether you can afford the 12-pack of toilet paper or if you're better off sticking to the 4-pack and other such minutiae.

After a year of busting tires and selling them, I was extremely relieved I'd let my parents talk me into going back to school (I finished high school, but declared I wasn't going to college and tried to be a writer-slash-NBA star instead). After a few months working 50-hour weeks, I'd pretty much shelved my writing and basketball both, and was purely focused on being a great salesman, but it was a job with no real end in sight. Everyone around me was telling me I'd make a great store manager some day, and I really started to buy into it and believe it. Even though I knew it wasn't what I wanted... I felt kind of stuck. I'd had a hell of a time finding a job, and if I didn't stick with this one who knew what else I would do.

Anyway, not sure how much more time you've got left in high school, but all the kids I knew who dropped out with visions of being rich and famous at one thing or another only ended up with pregnant girlfriends before 20 and dead end jobs they were still working the last time I ran into them at a high school reunion, and those starry-eyed "I'm taking my life into my hands!" looks they had then (well, not all of them... some of them looked defeated even then) are gone, probably never to return. To be fair, that happens to most people, but the folks I know who finished their educations don't look as worn away as those who never did.

Chase

I recommend taking advantage of whatever education you can get AS LONG as it doesn't throw you into serious debt. Parents paying for it? Good go do it. Scholarship? Grand. Subsidizing your tuition with a huge amount of student loans? Not worth it. Bankers devised a scheme awhile back to drive tuition prices up and rape unworldly 18 year olds before they got a grasp of the world. Just like they artificially created the housing bubble.

I have a love/hate relationship with our educational system. I absolutely love learning and most my money building a small library/buying instruments to learn. At many points I got extremely depressed in my last round of school and ended up dropping out.

Truth is, that the world is pretty fucked up place. An employer gets your resume and they weed you out depending on if you have that degree on there without any care for what type of character you have. I have seen employees of all different degree plans and I thoroughly believe at least moderate intellgience + good character is gold. University cannot shape character for the most part. I have honestly met many people with 4 year degrees who cannot even fucking spell.

I am not putting all my eggs in one basket. I am working, going back to school in the fall (with a moderate course load), and putting the majority of my effort into music.

This largely depends on who you are as a person. If you are self motivated, and have a clear picture of a direction you would like your life to go in, then dropping out is not the worst decision. I don't know how this works in south africa but here in the US In many states a GED is a the equivelant of a high school diploma. You can easy start classes at a community college and begin learning the things you really want to and not the bullshit you are told you must learn. You might even be able to find a state scholarship to pay for your classes. You would be amazed at how fun learning becomes when it is actualy something you want to be doing (or at least are working towards it) Getting an early start on this can help you in the long run.
Or maybe there is a buisness you want to start. Write up a one, three, five, and ten year plan. Then get started right away and don't stray from your goals. It could mean working a shotty job for a while, saving money for the next step. But if you have it all plotted out in your budget, and stick to it 100% then you are on the right path.

If you drop out with no plan or vision, just start working a shitty job, and hanging around getting high with your friends, of course you are off to a bad start. But if you start off with a forward moment then maybe you are actualy getting a head start on your dreams.


With all due respect Chase (as you are a man with a similar mind and vision to my own), you are describing so many people in the world not just ones who have dropped out. Think about al of the people who go to college and yet still live dreary uneventful lives. They think they are making "the right choices" and following a tried and true formula to success. And yet nothing happens for them. I have met people with college educations who sell coffee for a living. For all the dropouts that fail at starting the business they dreamed of there is a graduate who has failed as well. Think about all of the highschool drop outs who have become self made millionaires. Google famous high school dropouts. I had a buddy who knew he was going to be a professional musician. He was self taught. He dropped out and three years later had become and international millionaire rockstar. Or my friend who dropped out of high school saved up to travel the world and has now become a go to for international travel advice.

Check out this TED talk http://www.ted.com/talks/cameron_herold ... repreneurs
He makes a good point on how our education system actualy raises us to be employees and not our own bosses.

An education can be a powerful tool in the right hands but it is not a guarantee for a better life. It all comes down to the individual. Allanmogale, you seem like a bright person. If you decided to drop out do so with a vision in mind and a concrete plan with tangible steps to creating it. Fuck what other people think about your choice. Just keep working hard and show them through action that there is no one tried and true path. It might just be the best choice you ever made. On the other hand if you make this choice ill prepared it may come back to haunt you in the long run. Just be smart about how you approach it and you are golden. How much do you trust yourself to stick to your path despite temptations to stray? Will you be able to manage all your new found time or will you fall into inertia? Do you have a clear goal, or will you just be unfocused?

Rather than feeling doubts based on the world around you (high rate of unemployment and such) examine your own doubts on your ability to work hard on creating your dreams. Be honest with yourself. Do you have what it takes?

Right down a list of things you want to accomplish when you drop out and break each part down into tangible steps. Do the research and see if it is really possible, and then make your choice from there.

Know how you feel bro, I have no suggestions regarding if you should quit HS or not, and you're the only one who knows answer to that. Well..if you are unsure, scared, shaky, I'd probably say that stay in the HS..

Reading the start of the post, I could relate. This is how I dealt with shit:

Learn about accelerated learning. Google concepts such as visual learing, speed reading, memory training, SQR3, Timothy Ferris, Scott Young. This allows you to take your learing abilities to next level(actually; to quadruple level) and OWN anyone. You can learn highschool material very fast, on your own. The key here is to learn how to learn efficiently. I did not use schools to learn new things, rather I used school as a place where I could get help when I had a problem. Also, school is very good to make new connections and learn how to socialize and build relationships.

Ps, don't forget the graduation paper, or w/e it's called , it does help you, but at end of the day, the more skills & confidence you have, the further you get in life .

This comes from a guy who was completely retarded, and at one point, just skyrocketed. From very bad in chemistry, having no idea what XYZ in math means, to a guy who was #1 in school(or close to #1 ).

How do you avoid classes? You can either
a) fake sickness a lot - my mom was on my side and helped me many times, by allowing "fake sickness". Use this time well.
b) be in a class, but position yourself very well in a class, and study your own material(this means you already know everything that the class is supposed to teach you).
c) just not give a fuck - be careful though or you get expelled, know the boundaries



That's how I went through highschool. Studied a lot of programming & math on my own. Including: at home, at school, at breaks, at bus, at library, etc..I still did okay in school. Did not feel like school held me back.


...Or so I thought. After HS, started with university, computer science. The thing is, I already felt very confidence in the subject I was learning on my own, programming. Eventually decided to quit the university, and move to another country, to open my eyes.

The only point I can make here is that I felt kind of same as you did, and wanted to quit HS, but had shaky confidence(+fears, questions, etc..), and didn't have solid base to land when everything goes completely wrong. Instead, adapted to make school work with my personality and plans, whatever it took. School did not hold me back, after that.

With university, I had rock-solid confidence and knew that my net-worth was sweet, job-wise speaking. Thus when I eventually had a "I should quit.." thought in my mind, just went for it, no fears, no questions, everyone told me that it's the worst decision you can do, but fuck them.