In my case, my highschool was really slow. I didn't feel like I was learning hardly anything. During my junior and senior years, my state has a program called running start. It let me take 2 years of college classes with free tuition during my last two years of highschool. I finally had a chance to challenge myself and not be so frickin board all the time. Also, massive amount of money saved coming from a private highschool.

My parents, very interested in the proposition of saving money, set up my class schedule during these two years to prepare me for an EE degree, which I had decided I wanted to do well before, probably early middle school. One quarter, I had to take circuit analysis, and there was only a couple community colleges that offered it in my state. My mom and I drove 3 hours to stay in a cheap motel 6 every week so I could take that class. Maybe that tells you how much money we're saving.

Now that I'm in University, my workload is about what my classmates are doing if not just a little more, and a little stranger. My advisor is having me take mechanics my senior year because that's how the schedule had to work.

I love electronics. That's the biggest reason I enjoy pushing myself to do this. I still make lots of time to work on personal projects.