If people gave up after one or two failures, nothing would get accomplished.
- Wrote a program to model the stock market
Everyone wants to do this, but unless you have insider information like Goldman Sachs or some rare mathematical insight that a million PhDs have overlooked, you are likely to fail. The stock market is a zero-sum game where most of the profits go to the high end of a Pareto distribution. This is too ambitious for you.
- Worked on a paper with a professor.
Unless you are a genius, I doubt any of these professors would be working with you seriously instead of just being free lab labor. Your knowledge is most likely too shallow to be useful in high-tech research that gets all the grants. However, this might be your goal if you want to go to grad school.
- Tried to start a company over the summer.
Keep trying.
- Applied for X internships
You are too young. There is also a recession so you can lower your expectations.
- Half a dozen math/science contests
There's something wrong with your plan if you have the time for half a dozen of them.
- Tried to start a blog, worked on it for two years.
If people gave up after one or two failures, nothing would get accomplished.
- Wrote a program to model the stock market
Everyone wants to do this, but unless you have insider information like Goldman Sachs or some rare mathematical insight that a million PhDs have overlooked, you are likely to fail. The stock market is a zero-sum game where most of the profits go to the high end of a Pareto distribution. This is too ambitious for you.
- Worked on a paper with a professor.
Unless you are a genius, I doubt any of these professors would be working with you seriously instead of just being free lab labor. Your knowledge is most likely too shallow to be useful in high-tech research that gets all the grants. However, this might be your goal if you want to go to grad school.
- Tried to start a company over the summer.
Keep trying.
- Applied for X internships
You are too young. There is also a recession so you can lower your expectations.
- Half a dozen math/science contests
There's something wrong with your plan if you have the time for half a dozen of them.
- Tried to start a blog, worked on it for two years.
Link?