Making high school more relevant
I think one of the biggest things that high schools fail in is instilling an ethic of hard work in every student. Out of the hundreds of kids I know, only about 20% of them have jobs they work part time. Their other 80 either have parents that say "school is your full time job," or are just too busy smoking pot (or dropping e)... I think that every student should have a job in high school. I'm not talking about pointless jobs, like Taco Bell or Gap; I'm talking about real-world business jobs.
One of the things that I struggle with most is figuring out what I'm going to do after college; by working in different areas, I have eliminated quite a few. I know for a fact that I don't want to write code after college. I'm not into details; I like looking at the big picture and hypothesizing outcomes. I like computers, but I like people a million times more. These are just a few things I have found while working at TFH and now Okapi.
I think it would be extremely beneficial to high school students to work a real job; they can get a headstart on their journey of finding out what they want to do.