How to make the most out of school

(Just to preface, this is written entirely based on my experience, and there are many people who made a lot more out of school than I did)

I feel like I wasted my high school years. Not in the sense that I didn't get into the course I wanted. Not in the sense that I didn't do anything for N years straight. But that I didn't make the most of it.

Every day/week/term/year, it was come to school, hand in homework, catch up with friends at recess and lunch, take boring classes and go home to do homework. Outside of school, it was potentially more tutoring, or spending the weekends binge-watching YouTube after the compulsory Saturday sport.

Do you see how lifeless that is? If you were in my shoes whilst I was in high school, you wouldn't see it. Maybe you don't realise this is what you're in now. Even now, it's one of the biggest regrets I have from high school, and so I want to advise you on avoiding this great pitfall.

What school isn't

I didn't make the most out of school, because I didn't understand what school was. I, along with many, many others, assumed school to be a place to compete with fellow peers on an academic level, whilst simultaneously befriending them and participating in some other sanctioned activities here or there.

I defined my high school life based on the academics, the friends, the status I achieved. Anything and everything was dedicated to that, anything superfluous could be thrown away for it. It didn't have to be pretty, if I got through a math test by regurgitating answers to past questions or got through an essay by getting lucky on the one topic I memorised, I would happily take it.

I was so wrong. That's not what school is.

Interlude on learning

A quick note before we move on, most people don't understand learning. Learning is deeper than just memorising quotes of a book or formulas in math. Learning is truly understanding the ways things can be operated on, manipulated and then applied to such a general degree, that when you are presented with a completely novel situation, you'll be able to adapt your learnings to it seamlessly.

In my case, managing my time and energy has become much harder in university, and I regret not putting in more effort in high school to learn how to properly organise my life in different ways. Now I'm learning on the fly when the stakes are higher.

But equally as important, learning is a function that can be applied to much more than just textbooks and school subjects. Learning transcends to actions, for example learning how to talk, how to find patterns, how to learn, and even how to learn how to learn (the latter points to learning how to find good resources on learning). It transcends almost everywhere, for example learning about philosophy, learning more about your friends, learning what you like/dislike, it's all one thing.

Learning is the most important skill you develop as a person. Learning something always increases our utility, even if you think you'd be better off without knowing something, it still pays to understand.

What school is

School is a place to experiment.

School is a place to learn.

That will sound extremely obvious, but I think it's surprising how little of it most students do. Ask yourself, when was the last time you truly learnt? When did you input enough time and effort to understand something so well, you felt like you could manipulate it to fit any circumstance?

It was probably never.

But I'm telling you, the age when you're at school is pretty much the best time to experiment and properly learn with minimal consequences. Go out and try new things, as conventional or unconventional as they are, learn about yourself, learn about others, learn about everything you want to learn about.

Maybe you want to see what happens if you leave revision to the last day, maybe you want to try out painting even though you are more science-y, maybe you want to try be friends with everyone at school.

There's nothing worse than being stopped by phantom forces of "embarrassment", "time-pressure", "lack of freedom because of parents", etc. Those feelings are real, but they're not the real constraint. You are. You're disregarding your own agency; you have the choice to go out and learn and practice anything you want.

Keep in mind, the purpose of experimenting and learning is to figure out what is best for you. And so the earlier you start, the more experiments you can run, and the longer you can run them for. Most things you can't just start and then stop after a few months or so, they should be a genuine commitment for at least a year, where you try push yourself as much as you can.

If I had this mentality going in to school, I would be 10x the person I am now. I'm writing this as a first year university student who still doesn't really know an effective way to study, still sticks to my own unproductive ways, still sucks at living on my own.

And so I'm trying to learn now, just like I should've done in school.

How to make school yours

First of all, understand, get it into your mind that school is not just a monotone thing forced onto you, it's an experimenting ground. It's where you build upon that childhood curiosity and learn new things by doing.

I'd start by focusing on taking ownership of learning at school. Your teachers might be average, the curriculum might be boring, your schedule might be packed. Those can all be true, but they are not the reason why you aren't learning now.

You have more control over yourself than you think, you can read books outside the syllabus on topics that actually interest you. You can talk to people who know more than you and learn from them. You can build things, start things, make things that might fail.

Then learn how to commit to things properly. Commitment and consistency will get you far. Don't just dabble in learning, stick with a new sport, new hobby, new project for a year. Push through the phase where you're terrible at it, get over that phantom force of "embarrassment". It's at times like this when your experimenting and learning have the greatest effect.

Most students just try things for a few weeks and then quit. That's like running an experiment and concluding results halfway. Start early and you'll learn more from one committed thing than ten things you quit on.

Learn your own operating system. Most people blunder through without noticing their own patterns. What's the best way of taking in information? What sort of routine would most suit your happiness every day? Do you enjoy studying with friends during the day or by yourself late at night? Paying attention to this stuff sets you up for life. What works for you will change, but knowing how to figure that out won't.

School hands you time, infrastructure, and low stakes. Most students waste all three. They optimise for grades, dabble in hobbies, and coast through without learning how they actually work.

Then they get to university or the real world and realise they don't know how to learn, how to commit, or how they function under pressure.

I'm figuring this out now when it's harder. You don't have to.