At 13, I thought I was falling behind because I had no formal education. But, it turns out, I was doing just fine. In fact, it might have even helped.
Some of the details are fuzzy, so bear with me.
Inception
My parents were both born in England and I was born in Spain. Unfortunately, I don’t remember much about living there. I remember I lived in a cul-de-sac with a steep-ish road and we had an annoying neighbour girl, Paula, around my age. That’s about all I remember. When I was 6 – in 2007 – I told all my friends I would be away for a few days because we were going to visit my grandma in England. Yay, a trip! Except, the funny thing is, I must’ve mixed up some of the details because we were actually moving to an entirely new country. My mom had to clarify with the school that, yes, we were moving away. I still wonder if my friends ever found out.
Moncton, Canada
I actually don’t remember packing, flying, moving. I don’t remember anything at all between the ages of 6 and 12. I vaguely remember the house we lived in, and I vaguely remember playing on my computer a lot.
The important detail here is that I didn’t immediately go to school when we arrived in Canada. There were issues with enrollment, so my parents decided to homeschool my brother and I. Unfortunately, my parents were also trying to earn a living in a new country at the same time. They eventually opened a little clothing store that they worked at from 9 to 5.
Because of their business, they didn’t really have time to school us, so they just… didn’t. But as a kid I was fine with it. It meant I got to do whatever I wanted (and what I wanted at the time was to play on my computer).
My first laptop: a Toshiba Satellite A305-S6858. After over 15 years, it still turns on, but the screen doesn’t work :(
Richibucto
Eventually, Moncton became too expensive for my parents. The store wasn’t doing great and they were struggling. I wasn’t really aware as a kid; I was still playing on my computer. We eventually packed up and moved to Richibucto.
Richibucto sucked. I still think it’s a retirement town for old people. My parents had a daily commute that took them two hours to get to and from work, and my brother and I spent all our time inside on our devices.
The good thing is, I started programming in Richibucto when I was 13. I started on a little game engine called Roblox. The first programming tutorials I followed are still on YouTube. You can see them here in all their 720p, Windows Vista glory. I have a soft spot for Roblox and I still think it’s a great platform for anyone that wants to learn game development, but I digress. Roblox (and the Friaza, the creator of that video) changed my life.
At a similar time, I started having panic attacks about my future. I thought I had nothing going for me; no education, no friends, and no prospects with my current trajectory. I hid it well enough from my parents for a while, but they started to notice things weren’t going great. Sometimes I would get so bored that I would just stare at my computer screen for a long time. I didn’t really know what else to do.
When I was nearing 16, we moved to Irishtown, which is just outside of Moncton. We moved three minutes from a high school. I asked my parents to enroll me, but they were hesitant. They were worried that I would be bullied or be too far behind. After some persuasion, they finally agreed.
I took the mandatory assessment tests to enter Canadian high school for the first time (probably brutally failed), and started my education by being thrown into grade 11.
High School
I was excited to go to high school. I thought it was a new beginning and a door to a better future. I was focused and ready to learn.
A few months into school I thought, wow, this is really easy, not knowing I was put into remedial classes. After I realized, I asked my teacher if I could move to the standard English classes for the second half of our year-long English class. Seeing that I had a 99% in the class, he agreed.
In my second year of high school, I started doing the harder courses, like physics and advanced English. I even completed a math course online in less than a month so I could fit calculus in my last semester. I still remember my math teacher, Mrs. Pope, telling me that some of her students couldn’t figure out in 3 months what I did in 2 weeks. I was happy knowing that skipping grades 2 through 10 didn’t hinder me at all. In fact, because I wasn’t burnt out for years and I wanted to learn, I think it helped me tremendously.
High school did get a little boring eventually. I competed in a cyber security competition called Cyber Patriots for two years, making it to the finals both times. We got to fly to Ottawa for one, which was a lot of fun (thanks, Mr. Pope. Yes, husband of math teacher Mrs. Pope). My physics teacher, Mr. Dickinson, had the most fun classes. Besides throwing balls at sleeping student’s heads, he was a great teacher and still the best one I’ve ever had. He brought me to dinner after I graduated. Great guy.
In Canada, you only need grades 11 and 12 to graduate high school, which was perfect timing for me. I did great and graduated with a ~96% average and all the pre-requisites to go to university for Computer Science.
I got a pin. Cool, but I can barely see it outside the photo.
University
High school was cool and all, but it wasn’t everything I wanted it to be. I didn’t meet many great friends, I wasn’t learning anything too interesting, and the programming courses were too easy. After I graduated, I was happy to move on to university. I was happy to start studying what I was passionate about: Computer Science.
Long story short, I’m almost done with my degree. At the time of writing, I have three courses to finish. I think this post is long enough though, so maybe I’ll make one about university another time.
In short, I think Canadian high schools might need some improvements. I don’t consider myself to be anything special, but I was able to skip 9 grades and still make it out better than most. I think a lot of the other students were just burnt out. They didn’t want to be there anymore, and that’s fair. I’ve started to feel that in university. I just want to start working and programming professionally already!