Comment on Uniquely Bright at Slashdot

I disagree. He is special and unique, just like everyone else.

My advice:
I’m not entirely sure what the big rush is to go to college. I recommend living in a foreign country first, preferably one with a different language and a different culture than your own. Find a university or college town or smaller city in this country and plop yourself down for a year to learn the language. Avoid places with huge tourist industries, but if there is a little tourism, that’s good. It will give you an opportunity to meet other travelers and the occassional opportunity to hang out with a countryman (or woman). Also, there’s a better chance other people will be able to speak your language.

Now, if you don’t have much money to start with, let me suggest a third world country, or at least a developing nation. Work for 6 months, save $300/month, and you’ll have enough to live in Mexico or Central America for a year, if you live very frugally. I know students that are renting decent rooms for $75 US in Guanajuato. You can eat pretty well for $100/month, less if you cook your own.

Once you pick up enough of the language, you can look for opportunities to supplement your income. Do you want to take language classes? It might be possible to teach an English class in exchange for a language class.

Travel really does broaden the horizons. Real travel, that is. A two week vacation is generally not long enough to really soak up a different culture.

At the end of the year, evaluate. What do you want to do next? More travel? College? Work? Some combination of the three?

The most important thing is not to get sucked up into the values and expectations of those that haven’t really examined life. They’ll tell you everything you need to know about being successful*, but they know nothing about being you. If you just focus on being you, or as the parent poster suggested, being the best you, you’ll do much better than 99% of the other unique and special people.

*I advise going into plastics.

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