The truth is, dropping out wasn't an arbitrary decision. It was something I'd been planning since I enrolled in the school. Before you start to make any assumption about the school, I shall state that there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. It is, as a matter of fact, a perfectly fine school. The staff are very caring and the vice principal even interdicted me from dropping out (I did it anyway) because she was worried about my future as a non-graduate with almost no degree. But it would worry me more had I stayed any longer in the school. My neurons now and then discuss about going to college at the age of 18, and yet in school I was two years older than my classmates, which had to be traced back to the fact that I'm not a native English speaker and I was studying abroad in Singapore.
When I first came to Singapore I could barely understand English. (I wasn't taught much of it beforehand) I had to swallow the only pride a 12-year-old had and register as a Grade 4 student in an elementary school when I was already Grade 6. And I still carried the risk of being expelled if I took too long to familiarise myself with this foreign language, whose linguistic structure is so much different from the one I used in China where we draw weird-looking symbols on papers and make seemingly irrelevant sounds as we read them.
As I became more and more conversant with this new language, the language barrier started to collapse and I was able to gain access to more information in the library and on Internet. I began learning things that intrigued me, for instance, how to design a website, instead of focusing on memorizing all the possible data that would be "tested" in examinations such that I could stand a chance to retrieve the true academic identity I deserve. In Grade 8, I started reading books about programming and was amazed by how interesting it is. That was when I decided, it was time. I left the school, and left the country (and saved my parents a lot of money).
It's been about 10 months since then. I wouldn't suggest anyone to try dropping out and studying things they like alone at home but I'm glad I did it. In these 10 months, not only have I improved my linguistic expressions by reading many books, from Stephen Hawking to Hunter S. Thompson, I have finished up the entire A-Level Mathematics syllabus, gotten the hang of programming in Objective-C, Java, Javascript, PHP and Python and learnt about quantum mechanics, particle physics, cosmology, computer science and many other interesting things from reading Wikipedia, listening to BBC podcasts, watching lectures on iTunes U, taking courses on Coursera, etc.
When I first came to Singapore I could barely understand English. (I wasn't taught much of it beforehand) I had to swallow the only pride a 12-year-old had and register as a Grade 4 student in an elementary school when I was already Grade 6. And I still carried the risk of being expelled if I took too long to familiarise myself with this foreign language, whose linguistic structure is so much different from the one I used in China where we draw weird-looking symbols on papers and make seemingly irrelevant sounds as we read them.
As I became more and more conversant with this new language, the language barrier started to collapse and I was able to gain access to more information in the library and on Internet. I began learning things that intrigued me, for instance, how to design a website, instead of focusing on memorizing all the possible data that would be "tested" in examinations such that I could stand a chance to retrieve the true academic identity I deserve. In Grade 8, I started reading books about programming and was amazed by how interesting it is. That was when I decided, it was time. I left the school, and left the country (and saved my parents a lot of money).
It's been about 10 months since then. I wouldn't suggest anyone to try dropping out and studying things they like alone at home but I'm glad I did it. In these 10 months, not only have I improved my linguistic expressions by reading many books, from Stephen Hawking to Hunter S. Thompson, I have finished up the entire A-Level Mathematics syllabus, gotten the hang of programming in Objective-C, Java, Javascript, PHP and Python and learnt about quantum mechanics, particle physics, cosmology, computer science and many other interesting things from reading Wikipedia, listening to BBC podcasts, watching lectures on iTunes U, taking courses on Coursera, etc.
