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You sound like a neat person, and congrats on having become such. :) I am curious about one thing you shared - the choice to get the B.A. rather than the B.S. in CS. Did the B.A. require less coursework in CS, since the choice allowed you more time out of the CS building? Our son's state U didn't even have a B.A. in C.S., only a B.S. option. It was in math that he had a B.A./B.S. option and there, the B.S. required more math courses (and maybe more science courses, too), and his CS advisor urged him to relax and not bother with the B.S. in math since he'd already had a B.S. in C.S. and it would seem more well-rounded to have both a B.A. and a B.S., but our son felt that was B.S. since in fact, he needed no more coursework to get the B.A. and needed two extra math classes for the B.S., so really the B.S. was a "higher level" of education and he didn't care what things looked like to others. He also had finished his first B.S. with a 4.0 GPA in CS and we questioned whether he should really sign up for yet more CS credits when he didn't need them, but he again didn't care about risking the GPA; he only cared about learning, and back then, I don't think auditing much crossed his mind (where in graduate school, he has just sat in some courses because the program wouldn't allow him to load up formally on more credits, where his undergraduate school dean had no issue signing off on a 25-credit semester rather than the typical 12-15 credits). I feel pretty confident that it's not like all people with a B.S. in C.S. lack a well-rounded education in college. Our son took above and beyond the college's requirements in arts and humanities, social sciences, language/culture (he took German and French courses plus a bunch of culture credits, and had taken some Spanish and Italian before going to college), science (the university only required students take two courses in bio, chem, or physics, and our son took one in bio at 9, two in chem at 9, and also three physics courses), and English (he got freshman English credit from his CLEP score, but since he also was in the Honors College, if he used test credit for freshman English, he had to take an upper level English). In addition to that, he was on a college sports team for a year (won a gold medal in it), was in SGA from sophomore to senior years, and was active in a bunch of other things on campus while also staying active which younger students off campus (was in a handchime choir for those 10 and up, did tap performances with other children, gave magic performances with children ages 5 to 18, etc.) as well as socializing with senior citizens (he volunteered once a week at a local retirement home from ages 7 to 14, when he moved out of state for graduate school, though he did come back at 15 to give a eulogy for one of the residents, as she had requested he do a eulogy for her even since she heard him do one for another resident when he was I think 10). He also spent summers doing 40 hour/week internships at a tech company in another state from ages 9 to 12. Oh, and he did study abroad programs in eleven countries while in college and had been to over 30 countries before he moved away from home at 14, I believe (is up over 40 countries now, I think). An early start programming no doubt does give one a leg up. Our son began programming at age 5, and by the time he finished college, I think he had dozens of computer languages on his resume, most of which were learned outside of college and not in classes. As with others in this thread, I'd urge you to research homeschooling more before you make any decisions for your own offspring's education, if you ever go the route of having children (as I realize many smart people opt out of the parenting path, just as I had planned to do before meeting my husband). |