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Comment by s00pcan | Hacker News Reader

My parents always thought I was wasting time on the computer and berated me at every opportunity about it. They still do, even though I make all of my money at this point using one and am 24. Back then they criticized me for not being involved in sports or at least chess club; they didn't give out trophies for computer programming at my school so I never received one. Sure, I played games, but I was learning new skills and programming all the time. When I was injured from skateboarding I made a GBA game in C. The next time I injured myself I learned PHP and started using it to connect to databases on my websites. I just wish I could understand programming then like I do now - the concepts make sense now but I don't have the free time I used to.

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I've had a similar experience in that time spent by myself in the "solitary" environment of a computer was very looked-down upon by my parents. I don't think either of them fully understood the amount of mental stimulation and learning that computers can provide. I was able to teach myself C in high school; this provided me with an advantage to other students in University in the introductory programming classes.

They never had any problem if I chose to watch TV socially instead of spend time alone. However, I rarely watch TV simply due to the lack of stimulation and interaction, not to mention the amount of garbage that is broadcast these days, unless it is in a social environment.

I have tried in the past to convince them of the benefits of what I am doing, but they simply refuse to acknowledge "computer time" as independent educational exercise.

> Back then they criticized me for not being involved in sports or at least chess club; they didn't give out trophies for computer programming at my school so I never received one.

This is why programs like the FIRST robotics competition (http://usfirst.org/) are so important: they give engineering/programming some of the competitiveness and glitz traditionally reserved for high school sports.

I drove my high school's robot for 3 years at FIRST competitions around the country -- way more exciting/educational/fun/memorable than playing for my school's soccer team (my other extracurricular).

Oh yeah, I did do that. My team got an award for having the least amount of engineers per students - only one! I was asked to come to the competition for free (the other students had to pay something over $100) because I was the only one who had any idea how to program the robot. I wasted most of my time working on a 3d animation in 3dsMax because I didn't expect to go at first, so our robot only had basic movement controls.

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