In respect to basic education, elementary, middle, and high school, I would say that my schooling has been similar to most students around the world. In high school, I challenged myself with virtually the most rigorous course schedule that my school offered and I found it to not be enough. I did several things to add intellectual stimulation to my life.
Community College
When I was a junior in high school, I decided that I wanted to learn more than what I was learning at my high school so I took a class at community college. The class that I took was beginning web design, and suffice to say, I was the youngest person in my class. I am not one of those people that looks older than they are (most people think I look younger) and as a result people in my class would always joke about my young age. Another interesting thing about that class was that people would ask me why I was taking it and I simply said, "I want to know about web design." Some people in my class were amazed that anyone would go to school for fun, but I really enjoyed it. I received the second highest grade in my class and was ranked second only because I made a small mistake on my final exam. To view one of the projects that I made for the class, click here.
ID Tech Camp
Back in 8th grade, my school required all top the students to participate in a program called the Rocky Mountain Talent search and take the ACT test. So, in 8th grade, I took the ACT and received a 25. At the time, I had no idea if that score was good or bad. However, today I realize that is much above the national average for all seniors graduation from high school. As part of the program, I was sent something in the mail that told me about various educational camps, and one of the things mentioned was ID Tech Camp.
ID Tech Camp is the #1 Tech Camp in the nation and has camps at universities all over the country. In 8th grade, I decided that over the summer I would go to a camp offered at Stanford University. The experience was very interesting. I took a course in Programming and Robotics in hope of learning how to program robots. However, at the camp, all they really taught us was some basic level programming. Even though it was not what I expected, I had an excellent time and decided to participate 2 more times.
The next summer, I decided that I would take a class in Flash Animation and Web Design. This program was much more better for me because I learned exactly what I wanted to learn and had amazing instructors. To view the project that I made at camp, click here.
The most recent time that I went to ID Tech Camp, I participated in their ID Programming Academy which is the only programming academy for high school level students in the country. This camp was different from the other ones that I participated in; all of the students here were extremely skilled programmers and at the end of the program we presented our projects to NASA.