I was hoping to goto MIT before I entered my freshman year.  But none of my friends were in honors and this created one of the worst times of my life.  The previous year had been one of the best.<p>In that dark year, at 14, I became focused on hacking and social engineering.  I had lost my best friend and girlfriend, and the dynamics of it all isolated me from my other friends.  Being 13 and somehow in love with the prettiest girl and then losing it all was devastating.<p>I barely graduated but had a fun and worked on cool side projects.<p>At 18, I met a hardware engineer and went on to work on various projects.<p>I have had a lot of interesting job offers or deals just by meeting people.<p>I had a major investment bank recruit me but I never even had a real job and probably couldn&#x27;t get hired at Burger King.  The deal I was offered was absurd.  In the end, I declined it and somewhat regret it.<p>But my point is, had I dated that girl throughout high school, I probably would had went to a great University.  And today would be some strange diminished version of myself.