Advice for a 13-Year-Old Working Toward a Finance Degree

[bellbaby]

When I finished my education and got a great job, it was a direct consequence of my experiences as a brick and mortar student. I had real world experiences on campus. How could that be? Because of all of the labs I took. I also had fellowships to work in labs, both wet and dry. I worked with multimillion dollar equipment gaining very valuable knowledge that would have been impossible to obtain with self-study or even from attending lectures at a brick and mortar school. Plus I had a lot of fun in labs. I went to a big state university and tuition was reasonable. Tuition and books costs less than my fellowships paid me.

A home schooling, self-study program is not a substitute for STEM education at a brick and mortar school. STEM isn't for everybody, perhaps not for the OP.

zapproximator, you're going to finish early, I want you to find a great postbaccalaureate experience somewhere. Take a geology course from the University of Hawaii. Welcome to Geology at UH Hilo! Maybe you can get P.E. credit for learning how to surf. And don't forget about astronomy - take an astronomy course at the University of Hawaii so you can use their world class telescopes. What would impress me is not your online degree at an early age. I would be impressed by enviable post-baccalaureate experiences. My best and most useful college experiences were as a post-baccalaureate student.

Also taking notes, here... good ideas. The friend I mentioned who is working with me as we help our middle school kids has a brother who shot straight to the top of a big company with a great internship... so it is definitely something my friend and I think about.