Anyone feel like their friends held them back in high school?

I did very poorly in high school (though I picked things up now) and was always wondering why I did so bad. I was talking with my dad about it and he blamed the group of kids I hung out with and said it was a bad environment to put myself into and provided no motivation for me to succeed. The group of guys I hung out with weren't "bad" kids per say, just REALLY lazy and never took anything seriously.

Anyone else have the same feeling regarding their friends back in HS? Maybe I'm putting too much emphasis on them and just giving myself excuses.

 

friends or no friends it all comes down to personal maturity.

If you are a mature person that is also smart and driven you will do whatever it takes to achieve your goals no matter what kind of friends you have. Some people don't develop this maturity until later in life when they really start to see the consequences of their actions.

 

I know what you mean, but it's hard to agree because at the end of the day it's just about you allowing yourself to be influenced by them. I had the kind of group of friends that you'd look at and think they were hoodrats that would all end up in jail. And that's about right, but I didn't let them drag me down with them, thank god.

 

I can raise my hand to this, although it really wasn't a matter of my friends so much as the environment that I grew up in. I attended a high school that wasn't really the epitome of ambitious thinking. Many of my classmates never went to college; of those that did, a majority stayed in-state and went to non-targets. Hell, I think I'm the only one of my 500 classmates that is pursuing a career in business. There are the few standouts that went on to do law, med school, politics, etc. But I would say that out of the 500 classmates of mine that graduated, about 200 went to college, and of those only 20-30 of those actually got anywhere in life.

It's no one's fault, really -- you can't blame it on your upbringing or your environment. I grew up where I grew up by chance, and I don't blame it for where I ended up. I had the good fortune to make it to a target; once I got here, that's when things got put into perspective and I realized that I was only a big fish in a small pond back in high school. That's when I started busting my ass - my freshman year, for every hour that my classmates studied I probably put in six, and even then I was failing exams left and right. Nothing else to do except work harder and work smarter.

Where we came from doesn't make us -- it's where we want to go and what we're willing to do to get there.

Currently: future neurologist, current psychotherapist Previously: investor relations (top consulting firm), M&A consulting (Big 4), M&A banking (MM)
 

I definitely feel the same way. I went to a preftigious high school in my state and made the bad assumption that nobody there would be a loser. Fell in with a crowd that did nothing but play WoW all day, and ended up going to a school well below my SAT/GPA level to stay near them. I figured "hey, we're all smart, we'll all get 4.0s in college and everything will work out." Now I'm shooting for Big 4 accounting because it's the best I can hope for; the only one I'm still in contact with is an unemployed stoner; and others I'm aware of include a liberal arts grad student, TTT law student, stoner working at Dairy Queen, guy living with his parents, and full-time babydaddy with a woman twice his age. At least I can say I turned out the best of my group of friends.

 

A lot of is it about straight up motivation. If you decided that you wanted to become a banker or go to a target school or whatever starting from day 1 freshman year in high school, then you would've done much better than your friends. I didn't make it to a target school but I wasn't pulling straight 4.0's and rather I was concerned more about sports/girls/parties and was happy taking the B+

 
Husky32:
A lot of is it about straight up motivation. If you decided that you wanted to become a banker or go to a target school or whatever starting from day 1 freshman year in high school, then you would've done much better than your friends. I didn't make it to a target school but I wasn't pulling straight 4.0's and rather I was concerned more about sports/girls/parties and was happy taking the B+

I second that.

Like one of the posters above mentioned, if you saw my friends and i back in high school, we looked like delinquents and hood rats and i'm sure many people thought we were going to go down hill after HS. But I can honestly say, once we entered college we left the games behind and matured. Some of us went to targets, semi-targets, and non-targets but I can honestly say we all have cleaned up our shit and are on the right paths.

but had we dicked around less in high school, lord knows where we all would be today.

 

Yea, definitely had my friends to thank for that. The thing was, though, I brought it on myself. I was just an awkward/shy kid. They were (for the most part) pieces of shit though and that's why I don't talk to them.

Oh, honorable mention to my mother who pushed me into hanging out with them because they were "such great guys". Just another reason I love/hate my mother.

"You stop being an asshole when it sucks to be you." -IlliniProgrammer "Your grammar made me wish I'd been aborted." -happypantsmcgee
 

Here's the litmus test- now they you are doing well, how many of them are you good friends with? The answer is probably a resounding zero soooo... yes.

"You stop being an asshole when it sucks to be you." - IlliniProgrammer
 
Senvik:
Here's the litmus test- now they you are doing well, how many of them are you good friends with? The answer is probably a resounding zero soooo... yes.

well I'm in college now. I actually stopped hanging out with those guys starting junior year. only hung out with them for 2 yrs in high school, and my worst/most important year (junior year) I actually wasn't with them.

Funny story. I had a 3.0 GPA in high school, ranked bottom half, 1290 SAT. went to a shitty school for a year after being rejected at the state flagship and transferred into a top 15 semi-target my second year after getting 4.0 in some easy classes. people said the fact i got rejected at the flagship totally saved my life. even if i did my best in HS i doubt i wouldve gotten into the school im at now.

 
ltohang:
I had a 3.0 GPA in high school, ranked bottom half, 1290 SAT.

How is this even possible?

My group of friends in high school were all crazy, super overachievers, smartest kids in the grade, we were stressed out all the time and constantly bickering with each other because we were borderline suicidal for the first 3.5 years of HS. after we were accepted to college (all of us got into great schools, ivy equivalents or better), this pent up stress translated to some pretty stupid/dangerous behavior during senior year and the summer after...

Be careful what you wish for

 

I went to a pretty competitive high school, so I actually feel like growing up in that sort of hyper driven culture has crossed into my own head. I went to a target university, but even there, I always had the feeling that while everyone was clearly very smart, that they weren't quite as overtly over-achieving as the kids I went to high school with.

 

Agree that the people in my community growing up didnt particularly help in my development. Thats why to an extent I put myself in programs to develop myself with rather passive support in helping my going to events in high school and middle school (jrotc, martial arts, sports). I cut out a lot of people who I felt were bringing me down, who have since done little with themselves, and had some great influences who came in to my life during the college years and was able to benefit from their experience and perspective. Since then Ive brought some of the people from my HS years back in to my life and have been trying to influence them on what to do with themselves (with their support - being the keeper of thy brother style). That said, not many people from my HS days have really gone on to do very impressive things, aside from like, one lawyer, and phd students in philosophy and physics which are both very cool, though I didnt keep in touch w/ any of those 3. Its kinda sad.

“...all truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” - Schopenhauer
 

Of my 'crew' from high school: Me, Ibanker, Med Student, Lawyer, Consultant and Biomedical engineer.

And I went to a shitty public school.

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses - Henry Ford
 

Maybe you're just a fucking idiot and you should stop blaming everyone else for your failures.

Under my tutelage, you will grow from boys to men. From men into gladiators. And from gladiators into SWANSONS.
 
Flake:
Maybe you're just a fucking idiot and you should stop blaming everyone else for your failures.

I didn't blame anyone else bro, geez.

PS- I love you

"You stop being an asshole when it sucks to be you." -IlliniProgrammer "Your grammar made me wish I'd been aborted." -happypantsmcgee
 
D M:
Flake:
Maybe you're just a fucking idiot and you should stop blaming everyone else for your failures.

I didn't blame anyone else bro, geez.

PS- I love you

Keep the romance on skype. No one here cares.

The answer to your question is 1) network 2) get involved 3) beef up your resume 4) repeat -happypantsmcgee WSO is not your personal search function.
 

My friends from HS; Law School, Bio engineer. consultant, Dentist school, Pharma School, Music industry major.

The answer to your question is 1) network 2) get involved 3) beef up your resume 4) repeat -happypantsmcgee WSO is not your personal search function.
 

Quite the opposite really: my highschool friends made me realize that if you're committed and work hard there are opportunities in the world I would never had dreamed possible. I come from a relatively poor Eastern European country and had thought that things like going to study abroad at a target university were only for the super-rich geniuses. My friends showed me it's not as impossible as I had thought. We were motivating each other throughout high school and at the same time had a lot of fun together. Those were one of the best years of my life (up to now at least). All of my close friends ended up doing pretty well for themselves: consultants, I-bankers, lawyers, managers at F100 companies, some went into academia out of passion.

 
Best Response

I don't think anyone here's making excuses because that's just pathetic. However the reality is that your environment (parents, friends) plays a huge role in how you grow up, especially in your younger years when you're more naive and impressionable. Once you've left your home and started a new life in college, you really have no excuse. Choose your own friends. As independent as you may think you are, you're still influenced by the people you see on a daily basis. Hang out with losers, and you're more likely to become one. Hang out with cool, successful people, and you're more likely to adapt their characteristics. It's even better if you're competitive because then you push each other to go farther than you normally would.

Personally I hung out with losers in high school. The guy down the street from me who I hung out with the most is currently working in retail, living with his parents, and graduated with an Associate's Degree from the local community college. That's not even the worst part. He still has this "high school popularity contest" mentality despite the fact that he's not cool and nobody likes him. I don't even think he ever lost his virginity. Complete fucking loser. People like that don't benefit your life, so there's no reason to keep them in your life.

In college (non-target) I had the good fortune of living with a few select people that were cool, confident, and hilarious. They influenced me substantially personality-wise. But I never had any friends in college who were as motivated and hardworking as me (not that those people didn't exist, they just weren't my friends). Now I'm going to grad school at a Target and will (hopefully) for the first time in my life be surrounded by motivated people who want more out of their life in their 20's than a boring middle-class 9-5 job in some lame-ass town/city with a lame uninspiring 5/10 girlfriend that you've been fucking since freshman year of college.

I'm generalizing a lot, but yea...

 
JDawg:
I don't think anyone here's making excuses because that's just pathetic. However the reality is that your environment (parents, friends) plays a huge role in how you grow up, especially in your younger years when you're more naive and impressionable. Once you've left your home and started a new life in college, you really have no excuse. Choose your own friends. As independent as you may think you are, you're still influenced by the people you see on a daily basis. Hang out with losers, and you're more likely to become one. Hang out with cool, successful people, and you're more likely to adapt their characteristics. It's even better if you're competitive because then you push each other to go farther than you normally would.

Personally I hung out with losers in high school. The guy down the street from me who I hung out with the most is currently working in retail, living with his parents, and graduated with an Associate's Degree from the local community college. That's not even the worst part. He still has this "high school popularity contest" mentality despite the fact that he's not cool and nobody likes him. I don't even think he ever lost his virginity. Complete fucking loser. People like that don't benefit your life, so there's no reason to keep them in your life.

In college (non-target) I had the good fortune of living with a few select people that were cool, confident, and hilarious. They influenced me substantially personality-wise. But I never had any friends in college who were as motivated and hardworking as me (not that those people didn't exist, they just weren't my friends). Now I'm going to grad school at a Target and will (hopefully) for the first time in my life be surrounded by motivated people who want more out of their life in their 20's than a boring middle-class 9-5 job in some lame-ass town/city with a lame uninspiring 5/10 girlfriend that you've been fucking since freshman year of college.

I'm generalizing a lot, but yea...

I hear a lot of what you're saying, especially the part where you don't want a boring life with a soul-crushing job that's totally unfulfilling. I was actually thinking today about how little I can relate to people that are just unmotivated and underachieving; then I realized that that person could have easily been me (and in fact, it really was me for a while. I went to a target but didn't know what I wanted to do until maybe midway through college).

I guess part of what really drives a lot of people is wanting something badly, and then proactively taking steps toward achieving that goal, be it something rather tangible such as a certain prestigious job or something less overt, like the approval of your parents or whatever.

 

People like that don't benefit your life, so there's no reason to keep them in your life.

+1 Judging from this piece of words, this is a pretty smart kid. we should hang some time. Anybody saying something like come on friends are just friends can roll with their bs.

--Money can't buy happiness. it can only buy orgasms. --Who the hell says I want happiness? Orgasms all I need.
 

Kids who brag about slacking off and still getting good grades were the type to say "Dude I totally failed that!" and when the exam gets graded they got an 82. Common, you're not fooling anybody. You got your homework done 80% of the time and studied for tests like the overachievers, just a little less.

Like someone above me said, it takes true dedication to do basically nothing in high school. I graduated with a 2.6 GPA (2.1 my senior year, 32 days absent) with a 1300 SAT. Were it not for college sports I'd probably have ended up at a no name college in PA. This is not me bragging, it's pretty pathetic how I approached my schoolwork and I'm extremely fortunate to have been a jock.

 

I was in some jack-off advanced program in h.s. and it only held me back in terms of I promised myself I would take 4 years off from being surrounded by people like that. I was a little too young to realize the whoremongering that is OCR. On a related note, is it just me or is it possible to be "smart" and "normal", the older you get it, yet impossible at a younger age? I've meet tons of smart/cool people recently, but I'm almost certain they're mutually exclusive at

GBS
 
GoldmanBallSachs:
*dude, 50 days of COD is dirty. We logged 9 in a semester and that was only because it was being round-robined by 9 ppl, lol.
50 days of a video game is not that hard to achieve. I'd say I probably have 1200 hours logged on one particular game, and that was from the past 5 months alone.
Currently: future neurologist, current psychotherapist Previously: investor relations (top consulting firm), M&A consulting (Big 4), M&A banking (MM)
 
chicandtoughness:
GoldmanBallSachs:
*dude, 50 days of COD is dirty. We logged 9 in a semester and that was only because it was being round-robined by 9 ppl, lol.
50 days of a video game is not that hard to achieve. I'd say I probably have 1200 hours logged on one particular game, and that was from the past 5 months alone.

Bullshit, lol. That's close to 8 hrs/day. I would believe you under only one condition, and that is if you're lying about currently having a job, lol.

GBS
 

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