<p>Ever since my inception of education I've basically given up on high school. Somehow I convinced myself I'm too intellectually advanced for the work that is being given in high school and I just stopped doing it. My mother does 90% of my school work (literally); everyone knows my mother does most of my school work so anything that I actually do is nullified thus I don't bother. My father is a smart man, he went to a good university, I assume he thinks college for me will be a relapse of high school. During my early years of schooling my parents used to force the concept of furthering my education, now everyone in my family is hinting I need to find a job post high school. I dug a hole for myself and this is mostly due to my computer addiction ; I don't even have a license, I'm home on the computer whenever I can be. I know multiple languages almost fluently - C#, VB.net, Python, and HTML5 (if you want to consider that a language). My sister is going to a decent university so money is going to be tight which is why the chances of me at a college scene are slimming but I have earned around $10,000 online doing various jobs. The only thing I can think of doing is offering to pay for my first semester of college and hopefully be at a dorm without my computer so I have nothing to divert me from studies.. Sadly I don't I'm really intrigued by philosophy and law but philosophy wont bring in the money. What I do online is very sporadic so that's not an option. I would rather be homeless than work some minimum wage job. My thirst for education is vigorous; what was done in high school was impetuous and I see how detrimental my decisions were now. I want to be prosperous and lucrative but I'm not sure if I'm strong enough/smart enough to let go of my pride ultimately consulting my parents. Sadly I have no tangible evidence to sway my parents` decision so they have to go by my previously deceitful word. Any ideas?</p>
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<p>Show some initiative for once. If this would help you pay for college, get on it.</p>
<p>You can get a minimum wage job and attend community college part time. I’d suggest starting with a composition course.</p>
<p>guess so</p>
<p>With your computer skills, you should be able to get more than a minimum wage job. And, no, you do not want to be homeless. </p>
<p>Have a discussion with your parents. They’ll probably be happy to hear you are taking more interest in your education. The first thing to do is absolutely stop having your mom do your schoolwork. I’m rather surprised that has been happening. They may not be willing to commit money to it given your track record at present but if you back up your words with enough actions, I suspect you will eventually win some support from them.</p>
<p>Also, learn to drive. It will be harder when you are on your own. You don’t need to get the license if the expense of being a driver is too much. You’ll just be prepared to get it when you need it.</p>
<p>Given your apparent interests, I’d advise you to major in CS or related and fulfill your elective requirements with philosophy classes. </p>
<p>God, you sound exactly like me in high school if you replace “mom did my work” with “I cheated on tests”.</p>
<p>I have loved programming since middle school, but for some reason I wanted to be a biologist, so I enrolled at a university as a biology major. I hated college and I failed most freshman classes. I dropped out, enrolled at a community college, and started taking CS classes with programming assignments. There is nothing quite like going from feeling like college is prison to actually enjoying homework (and going from C- average to straight As). And for GE, I have taken a political science class and a philosophy class, both of which I found pretty interesting.</p>
<p>Take it from someone who is basically the future version of you: major in computer science. Do not blame your situation on your computer addiction and certainly do not try to fight it by living without a computer. Embrace it. Take advantage of the skills you have already developed in your free time. I would consider CS a step (or several) up from philosophy in terms of intellectual stimulation and professional usefulness. My discrete structures class even got me thinking about the philosophy of mathematics like never before. With some AI classes and some library books, you can probably form a more substantiated opinion on the philosophy of mind than you ever could if you major in philosophy.</p>
<p>What grade are you in?</p>
<p>12th grade </p>
<p>Enroll in some community college classes this summer. My recommendation:</p>
<p>See if they have a standard sequence of CS classes for a CS major to take (a typical sequence is: intro to programming with Java or C++ → data structures → “systems”/something with C and assembly → advanced OOP). Enroll in the class in this sequence that does not have a required prerequisite. (Intro CS classes often have a recommended prerequisite, but that seems unnecessary since you already know how to write code.)</p>
<p>Every bachelor’s degree requires credit in a basic writing class for graduation. It usually goes by a very generic name like “English Composition” or “College Writing”. Identify this class at your CC, and get it out of the way. (To identify it, it helps to find out if your CC has an articulation agreement with a 4-year college, find out which writing class the 4-year college requires for graduation, and see which CC class is equivalent to it.)</p>
<p>See if your CC has a general physics sequence (typically one year long) that has calculus as a prerequisite. If you can transfer calculus credit into your CC (e.g. with AP credit), then enroll in the first class in the physics sequence. Otherwise, enroll in calculus. (Or both, if calculus is a corequisite.)</p>
<p>All of these are classes you typically need to complete before transferring into a 4-year college’s computer science department, if you are not already going to enroll at a 4-year college as a freshman. (Though physics might be interchangeable with another lab science.)</p>