Sorry, no angst today.

Game Maker-wise; I'm using GM to render graphs and check equations for a calculus paper, so my anti aliasing extension is getting some worthwhile use today.

And let's not forget: Paint.NET 3.5 has been released.

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It was my Sophomore year at that ubiquitous institution adequately described as High but not necessarily School, and I was bored. The reasons for being in high school in the first place didn't mean much to me; I wasn't dependent on any kind of social circle (which was good, 'cause I didn't have one), didn't feel the need to find my identity, and wasn't learning much. My counselor, whom I have nothing but gratitude for, pointed me in the general direction of the California High School Proficiency Exam - which any Soph/Jun/Sen student can take, but nobody wanted to tell us about - to get the equivalent of a high school diploma. Great, right? It comes with one string attached: it doesn't mean you've taken the classes you need to get into a UC or CSU.

Which brings me to a conversation I had with my calculus teacher. He said, and I paraphrase, that college was supposed to be the best years of my life and I should spend it at a damn good school communing with like minds. Preferably out of state. It's like the army: you'll act like an idiot but it'll make a better person out of you. So, in short, "don't go to a community college".

But I'm no kind of rich and I get the impression that universities are way overrated. So, instead of shooting as high as I could (and he was recommending MIT), I shot low: skip HS, go to a local community college, and do other things with my life. I could have an AA at the same time my friends finished high school. And if I felt like transferring up the ladder, I'd know what I was doing.

Took the CHSPE, passed, and got a certificate printed on that nice kind of paper that said I didn't need to go to HS if I didn't feel like it. I didn't. Then I applied for College of San Mateo (which is a great college, for what it is), and started out this semester with English, US History, Photoshop, and Calculus.

Did I mention I was 15?

A little surprisingly, I like it. I can wander in anonymously, have little to no homework besides essays, have quite a range of options available to me, and my time is my own. Call me travel-phobic, but I never really wanted to move out of state for four years. CC isn't glamorous, but it's convenient, and tuition is next to nothing.

I don't really know what I want to do next. I've got some high-class schools within driving distance, like UC Berkeley, San Fran State, and UC East Bay to transfer up to; or I could actually get off my butt and go somewhere farther away.

Maybe I should get a job. The CHSPE means I don't need a work permit (you can see why it's prescribed for child actors). But, it seems, anything more interesting than a McDonalds requires a BA/BS to even get an entry-level job, which is at least three and a half years from now. But what if I get a cool job and cut out after my AA? Is that so wrong?

So, if any of you readers in high school who would rather be in college, search your local .gov site for a provision like this. It's a pretty good idea if you can find a good college (some art or trade schools will work too) that doesn't require 4 years of high school.

What do you think? Is super-high education the way to go, for either personal edification or job qualification? Would you have done this?