full disclosure: only 21, but i can provide the perspective of someone who wasted a ton of time in highschool that is currently a junior in college. enjoying high school/getting your shit in line for college is going to be the main focus of this post. i'll start with that stuff
- take more band/art/whatever-extracurricular-you-like classes in high school. you are better at computers than your future programming teacher i promise. do stuff you enjoy in your electives, and learn the other stuff much more efficiently online. taking "fun" electives allows you to make friends with similar interests to you while giving you a break from the monotonous hellhole that is high school.
- want a scholarship for college but you aren't good at the ACT/SAT/whatever? there are lots of things you can do. play an instrument and join the athletic bands program, work on writing (for scholarship essays), look up ways to get scholarships and stuff from everything and everywhere: from your university as a whole, the specific college you're in, your highschool, local churches, charities, whatever.
- don't panic about grades in high school too much, they only matter marginally
- look up the status of job markets for things that you are working for in your major.
- find a state school that has a really good program for what you are getting into. for me, the university of memphis (which is where i'm from) has a stellar school of music. i wouldn't be going here for some of the other schools, but i can get the education i need much cheaper here than some fancy liberal arts college, with pretty much the same quality (if not better).
- don't take test-prep classes (ACT prep, SAT prep, whatever). these classes will condition you to doze off/ shut down during the real deal. those classes are hell. it's the intellectual equivalent of the word "damp". just take the tests at least once a year (starting in like 7/8th grade, or now if you are past that). that's what i did, and i ended up with a 32 on the ACT (despite not being particularly good at school). being able to put what you learn throughout your middle/high school career into the perspective of the big tests is a seriously beneficial skill. if you're going to pretty much any state school, this is the number that makes or breaks your academic scholarship offers.
- take AP classes. you're going to be forced to take a class during that time slot anyways. might as well make it count. taking AP/ dual credit classes just means you don't have to do it again in college. so you can have it easy in highschool then have it hard in college or just have it hard in high school. you also save a good amount of money. the choice is p obvious in hindsight, but no one ever phrased it this way to me. i came into college with ~13 credits (which is still a decent amount), and every semester that I look at the plan and see something i already did in highschool, i thank former-kevin. i just wish i did more. it would have made it much easier to focus on classes within my major.
- talk to the guy/girl. assuming you're not weird/creepy about it, the worst they'll say is "no". if they're rude about it, they were shitty from the get-go. i only started doing this late in high school. i didn't get any "yes"s (i only asked a couple people and was a p big weirdo tbh) but who gives a shit? that stuff would still be bugging me if i hadn't just asked.
- start your resume now. it will be so much better when you need it if you start it now. really. go do it now. fill it out as you go.
moving on to general tips
- eat healthy. this is something i only started doing recently. after a month you realize "oh crap why did i never do this earlier?" eat some dang vegetables. cook some good food every once in a while. i've recently started looking at every food as having a tasty to bad-for-me ratio, and i wish i did it through high school. grilled chicken, bell peppers, and asparagus? pretty tasty, not bad for me. i should eat this. country fried steak, mashed potatoes, and gravy? very tasty, but also pretty terrible for me. i probably shouldn't eat this unless it's really good.
- this also ties into the health thing but i couldn't find an easy transition. buy a big bag of carrots. every time you are "hungry" for potato chips or whatever terrible thing it is you want to eat, say "am i hungry enough to eat some carrots right now?" if the answer is "no", don't eat the damn chips. if the answer is "yes", go enjoy some delicious carrots, dude.
- don't be fake. be funny. everyone has a certain level of humor in them, and everyone can appreciate a clever joke/pun/whatever.
- be respectful to everyone. this isn't something that i didn't know growing up (gotta love being raised in the south), but it honestly shocks me how people can treat each other sometimes. being a good person feels better, makes life easier, and is how you want others around you to be.
lastly, tf2 tips
- play in esea sooner. playing in ugc for more than a season (if you really want to get good at tf2) is worthless.
- main a 6s class if you don't. they're more fun anyways.
- try to play on teams that are better than you. i managed to do this by not being a terrible, toxic person. it's a lot harder now that i'm leading a team to just get a fat stack around me, but it should always be the goal. don't be ridiculous in the teams you try out for, but being on a team where you can learn a ton from your teammates is a very nice thing.