<p>Hi I am a freshman currently in high school. Here are the courses I am taking/going to take freshman year</p>
<p>1st semester</p>
<p>Honors English 1
Honors Biomedical Science
French 2
AP World History
Health</p>
<p>2nd semester</p>
<p>Honors Algebra 2
Honors Biology
AP World History
PE
Programming 1</p>
<p>summer after 9th</p>
<p>pre calculus</p>
<p>Also I am kind of self studying AP Physics B currently, but I haven't been studying lately and am only on Newton's laws of motions right now, so I am not sure if I will be ready for the ap exam, so I might chose not to take the exam. Should I still study and try to take it?</p>
<p>I am really interested in math, computer science and the other sciences. I am going to apply to a science and math boarding school which if admitted I will attend in 11th and 12th grade. That school has a lot of science research classes which send tons of people to siemens and intel isef and other college math classes like linear algebra, graph theory, and multivariable calculus which I really want to take, so I was thinking of trying to take a bunch of ap classes and other classes sophomore year so that I wouldn't have to take them junior and senior year. Then I could take the interesting classes junior and senior year. Here is my plan.</p>
<p>Honors English 2- 1 block
Honors French 3- 1 block
Honors Civic and Economics- 1 block
AP Calculus AB/BC- 2 blocks
AP Physics B (if not self study physics Freshman) or AP Physics C( if yes self study physics freshman year)- 2 blocks
AP Chemistry- 2 blocks
AP Computer Science A- 1 block
AP Statistics- self study because no blocks left during school</p>
<p>Unfortunately I still won't have enough space during school to fill in all of those classes even if I self study stats because my school runs 4x4 basis so I have 8 blocks and need 10. So I was thinking of self studying calculus perhaps sophomore year. Is that a good idea?</p>
<p>Also I am really interested in computer science and artificial intelligence and would like to do a research project in that later and enter it in siemens and intel isef, but I don't have a lot of background knowledge on artificial intelligence, so where should I get that? Should I immediately start asking professors at my nearby college if i could intern, or should I get some more background research on artificial intelligence. I really want to get an internship this summer if possible.</p>
<p>I think you are taking things too seriously, you are overloading academics way too much. Go at your own pace (if the one you are planning is a good pace, stick with it, otherwise don’t). The advice I have gotten over the years was to do activities that you enjoy and are in the realm of your personality. </p>
<p>Regarding your question about research, I highly suggest you make a resume (if you haven’t done so already) with a nice cover letter, then as I did my freshman year, just make a simple web-crawler to crawl institutional webpages or indeed or stackoverflow careers to look for internships (trust me, it makes life a lot easier). You will probably get 1 reply out of 50 requests, I luckily enough applied to one of MIT’s labs and got a reply, interviewed and started working there for a year. I think the most important thing if you do not have experience in the field is to have recommendations, that really helped me. You could also apply for grants and investments if you think the idea is really, really good.</p>
<p>There are several things that you need to keep in mind:
Academic excellence is a necessary but not sufficient criteria for admission to any competitive school. What gets you in is a collection of evidenced personal traits that collectively are known as “match”. </p>
<p>For example, serious science is a highly cooperative endeavour. It is useful to have some evidence of the ability to work as part of a team on your application. Now it does not matter WHERE this shows up:
You are part of the starting 11 for your schools soccer team? Great, that shows it. You are part of the marching band, and marched in parades? Great, that shows it. You joined young entrepreneurs and started a company with a few classmates. Great, that shows it.<br>
You didn’t have time to do any of these things because you spent your free time stuck in your room, self studying for another exam? Bummer…</p>
<p>2) University admissions is for most kids the first time that they have ever experienced the fact that you can do absolutely everything right, and still not get the hoped for reward. Up until this point, the rewards were fairly tied to the effort. If you did x, y, and z, then you could pretty much guarantee reward a. For university admissions, that is not true. Every year MIT is unable to admit students who have NOTHING WRONG on their application. They did everything that they were supposed to do. That is unfortunate, but it is also true. Seeing MIT admission as a reward to achieved as a result of a specific series of actions is comforting but ultimately hollow.</p>
<p>@ddeisadz Did you enter any research competitions such as siemens or intel? How much did you know about bioengineering, and did you have any “credentials”? Also, did the professors at mit tell you about dna origami, or did you pick that up all on your own? I am an ok programmer, but I don’t know that much about artificial intelligence, and I don’t have many credentials relating to programming ,but I am taking a programming class next semester, and I program for my robotics FTC Team. I learned most of my programming of off an online mit ocw course. I am pretty good at math. I am taking algebra 2 next semester and pre calculus over the summer. I am also preparing for the amc 10 this spring, and averaging around 120. Will this help me with getting an internship or research opportunity?</p>
<p>@kkpanu9 I entered into Massachusetts State Science Fair (and Intel) during my Sophomore and Junior years. I took couple of classes at MIT (the MIT ESP program: junction and others) and got to know one of the professors ( a graduate student there) pretty well, the class was something like Applications of Bioengineering. She wrote me a great recommendation. I had read dozens of my brothers books (both engineers) and that is how got into bionengineering. Experience wise, I was really into programming: started programming in middle school and started developing an operating system (based on linux kernel) in middle school, that really caught their eye. </p>
<p>If you are, hate to use a cliche but out of the box thinking kind of guy, then just apply to private companies, community colleges, or even ivy’s and perhaps remote jobs to get a really seasoned experience. The better you do, the more recommendations you get and the higher you climb up the ladder. </p>
<p>The only thing I wish i had done was first really go in depth into calculus (I self taught myself a bit), it really helps in programming, the math just clicks in and you get a better feel for developing faster and more efficient algorithms. </p>
<p>I think overall you have a great start, especially for freshman, and the best advice that I can give (as other’s have so kindly given me) is to follow what you really enjoy doing. And most important of all, set a discipline and make sure you follow it, but DO NOT overload yourself or your year will suck (like my junior year).</p>