does outside of school coding prowess matter?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow. Your son sounds very impressive and you should be very proud of him. You have nothing to worry about. I am amazed that he has already written a standard Python library at age 14. Be grateful that he is not spending his free time playing video games and he is doing something very useful with his brain outside of school. I’m sure he will make smart decisions when it comes time to really deciding the right path. Keep in mind that he can always get a high paying job where the employer pays for him to attend college part-time. Most big companies pay for college classes.

+1
The coolest part is, the son does not have to be sure right now. They can go right away or delay college or change their mind later to drop out or enroll. It will still be ok but I do think most kids benefit from some complimentary enrichment, team work or artful skill that opens their mind. Just observe what random subjects/hobbies spark some interest but there is no immediate need to jump on something. This advice could apply to many 14 yr Olds with any talents or lack of talents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your kid may want to skip college or go into the workforce and take night classes.

It's absolutely an option if you will allow it. The traditional 4-year residential college is not for everyone.

I can see your kid bored/disinterested in many of the general requirements, as well as the intro level courses even in CS.

If anything, encourage your kid to start a hackathon competition team. I bet he thinks the coding club is boring, but a competition team can just pull two or three other experienced coders and then enter Bishop Ireton, TJ, Blair, Georgetown, UMD.

Don't listen to this. Truly bad advice. Any higher level job wants a college degree.

It's best he be well rounded but if that's it, that's it.

Not all HS have computer science clubs. Ours doesn't.

not true. if he is very talented he could get a job after high school and do quite well for himself. if he has contacts who want to hire him, i don't think college is absolutely necessary. look at some of the founders of the tech companies as examples.

what he is doing now is beyond what they teach in college CS (from what I can tell but I'm a layman looking in at a world beyond me),

Absolutely ridiculous, and it casts doubt on everything you said about his achievements, since you don't know what you are looking at.

Does he know low level hardware and assembly language? Has he written an operating system? Written a compiler? Written a network driver? Designed and analyzed data structures? Studied formal languages? Built neutral networks from sctatch?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your kid may want to skip college or go into the workforce and take night classes.

It's absolutely an option if you will allow it. The traditional 4-year residential college is not for everyone.

I can see your kid bored/disinterested in many of the general requirements, as well as the intro level courses even in CS.

If anything, encourage your kid to start a hackathon competition team. I bet he thinks the coding club is boring, but a competition team can just pull two or three other experienced coders and then enter Bishop Ireton, TJ, Blair, Georgetown, UMD.

Don't listen to this. Truly bad advice. Any higher level job wants a college degree.

It's best he be well rounded but if that's it, that's it.

Not all HS have computer science clubs. Ours doesn't.

You actually don't know what you are talking about. Please, stay out of conversations where you actually have zero true insight.

Go to SFO right now and walk into Open AI, Anthropic, and any number of hot startups and you will find a decent number of people working at those companies without degrees (and yes, a decent number with PhDs and everything in between). These aren't HS dropouts without skills (nor are they the classic Stanford dropout Sam Altman excluded)...they are kids like the OP's kid. You don't have a kid like this so you don't understand.

That said, I didn't say don't get a degree, however, the traditional 4-year college may not be the best fit.

Find us a job posting for a technical position at these companies that doesn't require a bachelor's at least.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS, currently a high school freshman, has been all in on coding for a long time. He's regularly engaged in high-level chats with the guy who wrote Python, has had his projects featured in podcasts and newsletters, has companies paying him to use his work, and has written a program that is part of Python's standard library. BUT, this is all he wants to do. He doesn't play sports; he participates in one extracurricular. He refused to join the coding club. His grades are good (mostly As).

Should I be tiger momming him to do more, or just let him do what he loves? He's happy (has a good group of friends and is a normal sweet kid at home), but I don't want to fall down on the job.

Nope leave him alone.

Absolutely leave him alone.

He will major in CS and graduate and have a fantastic job and it won't matter what school he goes to either. And he has a great advantage to interviewing for these jobs as most have tests or projects that involve coding and many can not pass them because they didn't do what your kid has already done.

Mom of a similar DS.

Unless OP's kid is grinding hackerrank/leetcode/USACO, he will not be at a specific advantage in CS interviews unless he starts practicing the types of DSA interview questions they ask. There's no evidence that OP's kid has "already done" those specific types of DSA questions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DS, currently a high school freshman, has been all in on coding for a long time. He's regularly engaged in high-level chats with the guy who wrote Python, has had his projects featured in podcasts and newsletters, has companies paying him to use his work, and has written a program that is part of Python's standard library. BUT, this is all he wants to do. He doesn't play sports; he participates in one extracurricular. He refused to join the coding club. His grades are good (mostly As).

Should I be tiger momming him to do more, or just let him do what he loves? He's happy (has a good group of friends and is a normal sweet kid at home), but I don't want to fall down on the job.

USACO Plat is a very impressive achievement, especially if he ends up wanting to go somewhere like CMU, and if he makes it to the IOI training camp then MIT becomes a realistic option. Those are schools where a large portion of his classmates will be at or above his level.

That being said, he's probably good enough to get to that level even if he starts next year; that's the point I would start hand-wringing. (Sophomore year is the point where kids should start to take their future seriously IMO, and that includes planning for college admissions).

Aside from competition programming, maybe have him look into Google's Summer of Code? That seems like it might be more appealing to him than competition programming. (but he should be exposed to both so he can make an educated decision, of course)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS, currently a high school freshman, has been all in on coding for a long time. He's regularly engaged in high-level chats with the guy who wrote Python, has had his projects featured in podcasts and newsletters, has companies paying him to use his work, and has written a program that is part of Python's standard library. BUT, this is all he wants to do. He doesn't play sports; he participates in one extracurricular. He refused to join the coding club. His grades are good (mostly As).

Should I be tiger momming him to do more, or just let him do what he loves? He's happy (has a good group of friends and is a normal sweet kid at home), but I don't want to fall down on the job.

MIT is waiting for your kid

MIT will reject him if he doesn't improve his application over the next three years in favor of USACO campers, USACO Plats from rural/underserved communities, students who've interned at FAANG, published truly original research, completed Summer of Code, etc. etc. If he's fine with, most likely, not going then that's fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your kid sounds awesome and talented. The question is do you want him to broaden his horizons by also learning other things in high school or college? Not sure there is a right answer but there are two different paths - he can continue to focus exclusively on coding and likely do very well, or he can go to college and have a more broad-based education, which may or may not change his path. I don’t think he needs to do other ECs for college admissions purposes. It’s more about what kind of learning he wants to do.

+1 To this. I have a colleague who is probably not unlike your son — brilliant and capable of taking on very high level projects at a young age — and thus can confirm it’s absolutely possible to get a good software development job and excel in it without a college degree. (In my colleague’s case he got his job while still in college and has since finished his degree.) The only problem with that path is that it limits what you learn somewhat. Perhaps this isn’t a problem for people who have the absolute focus to learn so much in one subject by the time they’re teens — perhaps they will be happiest doing their one thing their whole life long. But it would make me miserable to be stuck that way, so I would be tempted to encourage college for some suggestion of distribution credits and more diverse friends. You know your soon best. That being said, whichever route he/you take, it really does sound like he’ll be able to find a good job when he’s ready!

It's incredibly misleading to classify this as a "job with no college" situation; being in or having graduated from college was likely a mandatory requirement for his job, one he would not have gotten had he not been in college. Internships/coops/fulltime offers while in college are incredibly commonplace; while never having attended college, not so much.

[Anonymous]

I used to think that my similar high schooler would not be able to go to regular college--wouldn't have the grades, wouldn't care about the other classes, etc etc--we were looking at The Make School as a realistic option (Bachelor’s in Applied Computer Science program in 2 years in SF). [I just looked at it -- looks like they folded in 2021] . However, I wanted him to go to college to learn the OTHER stuff. And when he went it was great: he grew so much as a person and expanded his knowledge base from CS/straight programming into other areas like electrical engineering. Did he learn much in his CS classes? I doubt it. I don't even think he went to any unless there was a quiz or test that day, at least until he got to his 400/grad level classes. But it was VERY worth it for him to go to college for all the personal growth and human connections.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your kid may want to skip college or go into the workforce and take night classes.

It's absolutely an option if you will allow it. The traditional 4-year residential college is not for everyone.

I can see your kid bored/disinterested in many of the general requirements, as well as the intro level courses even in CS.

If anything, encourage your kid to start a hackathon competition team. I bet he thinks the coding club is boring, but a competition team can just pull two or three other experienced coders and then enter Bishop Ireton, TJ, Blair, Georgetown, UMD.

Don't listen to this. Truly bad advice. Any higher level job wants a college degree.

It's best he be well rounded but if that's it, that's it.

Not all HS have computer science clubs. Ours doesn't.

not true. if he is very talented he could get a job after high school and do quite well for himself. if he has contacts who want to hire him, i don't think college is absolutely necessary. look at some of the founders of the tech companies as examples.

what he is doing now is beyond what they teach in college CS (from what I can tell but I'm a layman looking in at a world beyond me),

Absolutely ridiculous, and it casts doubt on everything you said about his achievements, since you don't know what you are looking at.

Does he know low level hardware and assembly language? Has he written an operating system? Written a compiler? Written a network driver? Designed and analyzed data structures? Studied formal languages? Built neutral networks from sctatch?

Fair. Whenever I ask him to explain something, he has to start by defining basic concepts and terms because I don't know.

I can't answer all these questions but I'll try. Does he know low level hardware and assembly language? Unsure. He knows C and C++, and some others. Has he written an operating system? He's written a web framework. Don't know if that counts. Written a compiler? Don't know. Written a network driver? Don't know. Designed and analyzed data structures? I think so. Working with data libraries are one of his main interests. Studied formal languages? Yes. Built neutral networks from scratch? Don't know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS, currently a high school freshman, has been all in on coding for a long time. He's regularly engaged in high-level chats with the guy who wrote Python, has had his projects featured in podcasts and newsletters, has companies paying him to use his work, and has written a program that is part of Python's standard library. BUT, this is all he wants to do. He doesn't play sports; he participates in one extracurricular. He refused to join the coding club. His grades are good (mostly As).

Should I be tiger momming him to do more, or just let him do what he loves? He's happy (has a good group of friends and is a normal sweet kid at home), but I don't want to fall down on the job.

MIT is waiting for your kid

MIT will reject him if he doesn't improve his application over the next three years in favor of USACO campers, USACO Plats from rural/underserved communities, students who've interned at FAANG, published truly original research, completed Summer of Code, etc. etc. If he's fine with, most likely, not going then that's fine.

You have given me many things to google. Thank you!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your kid may want to skip college or go into the workforce and take night classes.

It's absolutely an option if you will allow it. The traditional 4-year residential college is not for everyone.

I can see your kid bored/disinterested in many of the general requirements, as well as the intro level courses even in CS.

If anything, encourage your kid to start a hackathon competition team. I bet he thinks the coding club is boring, but a competition team can just pull two or three other experienced coders and then enter Bishop Ireton, TJ, Blair, Georgetown, UMD.

Don't listen to this. Truly bad advice. Any higher level job wants a college degree.

It's best he be well rounded but if that's it, that's it.

Not all HS have computer science clubs. Ours doesn't.

not true. if he is very talented he could get a job after high school and do quite well for himself. if he has contacts who want to hire him, i don't think college is absolutely necessary. look at some of the founders of the tech companies as examples.

what he is doing now is beyond what they teach in college CS (from what I can tell but I'm a layman looking in at a world beyond me),

Absolutely ridiculous, and it casts doubt on everything you said about his achievements, since you don't know what you are looking at.

Does he know low level hardware and assembly language? Has he written an operating system? Written a compiler? Written a network driver? Designed and analyzed data structures? Studied formal languages? Built neutral networks from sctatch?

Fair. Whenever I ask him to explain something, he has to start by defining basic concepts and terms because I don't know.

I can't answer all these questions but I'll try. Does he know low level hardware and assembly language? Unsure. He knows C and C++, and some others. Has he written an operating system? He's written a web framework. Don't know if that counts. Written a compiler? Don't know. Written a network driver? Don't know. Designed and analyzed data structures? I think so. Working with data libraries are one of his main interests. Studied formal languages? Yes. Built neutral networks from scratch? Don't know.

OP again with one addition. As to the last question, the reason I don't know is because I don't know what a "neutral network" is. I do know, however, that he builds from scratch. He wrote a passion project essay in middle school about why he thinks coding is taught incorrectly because students are taught to patch together snippets of prewritten code, and never really learn the basics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your kid may want to skip college or go into the workforce and take night classes.

It's absolutely an option if you will allow it. The traditional 4-year residential college is not for everyone.

I can see your kid bored/disinterested in many of the general requirements, as well as the intro level courses even in CS.

If anything, encourage your kid to start a hackathon competition team. I bet he thinks the coding club is boring, but a competition team can just pull two or three other experienced coders and then enter Bishop Ireton, TJ, Blair, Georgetown, UMD.

Don't listen to this. Truly bad advice. Any higher level job wants a college degree.

It's best he be well rounded but if that's it, that's it.

Not all HS have computer science clubs. Ours doesn't.

not true. if he is very talented he could get a job after high school and do quite well for himself. if he has contacts who want to hire him, i don't think college is absolutely necessary. look at some of the founders of the tech companies as examples.

what he is doing now is beyond what they teach in college CS (from what I can tell but I'm a layman looking in at a world beyond me),

Absolutely ridiculous, and it casts doubt on everything you said about his achievements, since you don't know what you are looking at.

Does he know low level hardware and assembly language? Has he written an operating system? Written a compiler? Written a network driver? Designed and analyzed data structures? Studied formal languages? Built neutral networks from sctatch?

Fair. Whenever I ask him to explain something, he has to start by defining basic concepts and terms because I don't know.

I can't answer all these questions but I'll try. Does he know low level hardware and assembly language? Unsure. He knows C and C++, and some others. Has he written an operating system? He's written a web framework. Don't know if that counts. Written a compiler? Don't know. Written a network driver? Don't know. Designed and analyzed data structures? I think so. Working with data libraries are one of his main interests. Studied formal languages? Yes. Built neutral networks from scratch? Don't know.

OP again with one addition. As to the last question, the reason I don't know is because I don't know what a "neutral network" is. I do know, however, that he builds from scratch. He wrote a passion project essay in middle school about why he thinks coding is taught incorrectly because students are taught to patch together snippets of prewritten code, and never really learn the basics.

He's not wrong! Excellent college essay topic, btw

Coding and CS aren't the same thing though. College isn't, in fact, going to teach him much about python that he doesn't already know. But there's a lot of math, theory, etc. And it will let him discover if he wants to, for example, go to grad school.

I recommend asking him to read this book (free online): https://sicpebook.wordpress.com/ebook/

And go to MIT OpenCourseWare and explore some video lectures, problem set, etc
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-006-introduction-to-algorithms-spring-2020/
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-004-computation-structures-spring-2017/
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-046j-design-and-analysis-of-algorithms-spring-2015/

He'll either get excited about college, or at least his disinterest in college will be better informed!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your kid may want to skip college or go into the workforce and take night classes.

It's absolutely an option if you will allow it. The traditional 4-year residential college is not for everyone.

I can see your kid bored/disinterested in many of the general requirements, as well as the intro level courses even in CS.

If anything, encourage your kid to start a hackathon competition team. I bet he thinks the coding club is boring, but a competition team can just pull two or three other experienced coders and then enter Bishop Ireton, TJ, Blair, Georgetown, UMD.

Don't listen to this. Truly bad advice. Any higher level job wants a college degree.

It's best he be well rounded but if that's it, that's it.

Not all HS have computer science clubs. Ours doesn't.

not true. if he is very talented he could get a job after high school and do quite well for himself. if he has contacts who want to hire him, i don't think college is absolutely necessary. look at some of the founders of the tech companies as examples.

what he is doing now is beyond what they teach in college CS (from what I can tell but I'm a layman looking in at a world beyond me),

Absolutely ridiculous, and it casts doubt on everything you said about his achievements, since you don't know what you are looking at.

Does he know low level hardware and assembly language? Has he written an operating system? Written a compiler? Written a network driver? Designed and analyzed data structures? Studied formal languages? Built neutral networks from sctatch?

Fair. Whenever I ask him to explain something, he has to start by defining basic concepts and terms because I don't know.

I can't answer all these questions but I'll try. Does he know low level hardware and assembly language? Unsure. He knows C and C++, and some others. Has he written an operating system? He's written a web framework. Don't know if that counts. Written a compiler? Don't know. Written a network driver? Don't know. Designed and analyzed data structures? I think so. Working with data libraries are one of his main interests. Studied formal languages? Yes. Built neutral networks from scratch? Don't know.

OP again with one addition. As to the last question, the reason I don't know is because I don't know what a "neutral network" is. I do know, however, that he builds from scratch. He wrote a passion project essay in middle school about why he thinks coding is taught incorrectly because students are taught to patch together snippets of prewritten code, and never really learn the basics.

I think there was a typo - it's neural with no T. A network that works like a human brain.

[Anonymous]

He should go to college. 100%
You learn so many skills in college besides coding. And you make new friends and have fun.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your kid may want to skip college or go into the workforce and take night classes.

It's absolutely an option if you will allow it. The traditional 4-year residential college is not for everyone.

I can see your kid bored/disinterested in many of the general requirements, as well as the intro level courses even in CS.

If anything, encourage your kid to start a hackathon competition team. I bet he thinks the coding club is boring, but a competition team can just pull two or three other experienced coders and then enter Bishop Ireton, TJ, Blair, Georgetown, UMD.

Don't listen to this. Truly bad advice. Any higher level job wants a college degree.

It's best he be well rounded but if that's it, that's it.

Not all HS have computer science clubs. Ours doesn't.

not true. if he is very talented he could get a job after high school and do quite well for himself. if he has contacts who want to hire him, i don't think college is absolutely necessary. look at some of the founders of the tech companies as examples.

what he is doing now is beyond what they teach in college CS (from what I can tell but I'm a layman looking in at a world beyond me),

Absolutely ridiculous, and it casts doubt on everything you said about his achievements, since you don't know what you are looking at.

Does he know low level hardware and assembly language? Has he written an operating system? Written a compiler? Written a network driver? Designed and analyzed data structures? Studied formal languages? Built neutral networks from sctatch?

Fair. Whenever I ask him to explain something, he has to start by defining basic concepts and terms because I don't know.

I can't answer all these questions but I'll try. Does he know low level hardware and assembly language? Unsure. He knows C and C++, and some others. Has he written an operating system? He's written a web framework. Don't know if that counts. Written a compiler? Don't know. Written a network driver? Don't know. Designed and analyzed data structures? I think so. Working with data libraries are one of his main interests. Studied formal languages? Yes. Built neutral networks from scratch? Don't know.

OP again with one addition. As to the last question, the reason I don't know is because I don't know what a "neutral network" is. I do know, however, that he builds from scratch. He wrote a passion project essay in middle school about why he thinks coding is taught incorrectly because students are taught to patch together snippets of prewritten code, and never really learn the basics.

I think there was a typo - it's neural with no T. A network that works like a human brain.

Haha! Yes, before seeing this post, I asked him (randomly, without explaining) what a neutral network was, and whether he had built one. He looked at me funny and said, "Do you mean neural network? That's like ChatGPT. Only big companies would build something like that." So, the answer is no, he hasn't built one of those from scratch, but is that something that would be taught in a college-level class?