The best learning experiences comes from doing your own thing. Especially as a high school student. There isn’t much risk involved, you’re living with your parents, and you probably have a whole lot of time on your hand. This time should be used to do things your way and truly explore what meaning you want to give life. I understand that life is hard for a lot of us, taking care of families, working jobs, and balancing all of that on top of school puts you in critical condition for the freedom you seek. If these circumstances don’t fit you though, it’s worth taking risks instead of the common road.
The Learning Curve
There isn’t much you can learn from internships as a high schooler. If you truly want to learn something and see results, do it on your own. At an internship, the responsibilities given to you as a high schooler are minute compared to doing your own thing. If you mess up at an internship, nothing happens to the company. If you mess up at your own thing, everything falls apart, and you alone have to fix it. You play all the roles, from thinking up the ideas to turning them into reality. This ensures that you’re learning and seeing results, good or bad. If you are truly looking to learn as a high school student, doing your own projects will help you a lot more than an internship will. It shows you all the intricate details that you may not see anywhere else because not everything can be taught, but everything can definitely be learned through experience, and experience comes from tremendous failures.
My Strange Journey (So Far)
I’ve had my fair share of doing my own thing. I’ve made several video games, two of which I released. I also wrote several articles which helped me reach an audience and become a top writer on Medium, twice on separate occasions. I’ve been working on a novel for a while, I wrote a couple short screenplays I didn’t like, trying to launch a tech startup and to be honest, I have no idea if I’m doing any of it right. All I know is, if I had taken up a writing workshop last summer, had gotten professional help for my screenplays, or interned at a company, I wouldn’t have learned half the things I know today. It’s getting comfortable with failure that’s slowly helping me find meaning in life that can’t be replaced by the common road, which was the latter option.
Again, this is heavily implied for high school student. I am aware that for a professional career you need things like internships and supervision under professionals, but for a student in high school who probably has no idea what they want to do, doing things that are not industry standard with no professional supervision will help them decide better, as well as give them a better feel for what they actually want to do. It’s a strong opinion, but I think there is no point of spending time doing small things that don’t pay off in the long run as much as it would by taking risks.
