College tracks

Grade 9 — start one project

You are on one track. The project lasts four years. This year you start it and keep a log. The log is the start of the file you will send. Do not open a second project.

Every week, do four things inside that project:

1. Compute a quantity with units, state the uncertainty, and say what decision it supports.
2. Write one claim, two reasons, and one real objection. About one page.
3. Read one short original — a figure and its caption, a statute section, a schematic, or a specimen — and write what it says, separate from a summary.
4. Add to the log.

Finish these rungs on the First Principles ladder. Each one has a gate. The rung is done only when the gate is done.

1. Instructions a machine could follow
2. Loops and branches
3. Variables and state
4. Function as a black box
5. Balancing equations
6. The coordinate plane
7. Python: syntax and types
8. Python: files and automation

School courses beside the project: algebra and geometry, and a first lab science, usually biology.

Electrical engineering

Build a circuit with a source, a resistor, and a meter. Write the expected current from the resistance before you close the switch. Record the measured current and the gap. Same standard on the equation.

Done when a second person gets a nearby current from your written setup without asking you a question.

This week. Use a 9 volt battery and one resistor whose ohms are printed on it. Before you close the circuit, write current = voltage ÷ resistance, with the numbers filled in. Measure with a meter. Record the gap and whether you blame the resistor value, the battery, or the meter.

Log for this week. Date. Resistor value (Ω). Predicted current (A), written before closing. Measured current (A). Gap. Which part you blame. Who can rebuild the setup from this page.

Grade 11 — let someone break it

Same project. Someone outside your household tries to break the result. Their paragraph stays in the log. That person is the one who can write the letter.

Before you register for grade 12, write three lines from the course list your desired college publishes: courses you will have finished, courses still missing, and the term you will take each missing one. Add a missing course around the project. Do not drop this track’s mathematics, lab line, or memo to make room for an elective.

Every week, inside that project:

1. Use a rate, an accumulation, or a comparison, with units and the uncertainty, on the project's claim.

2. Write a timed page a stranger could grade. Answer the other side in the text.

3. Cite one paper, case, dataset, or specification. A textbook restatement does not carry the claim.

4. Put the outside reader's paragraph in the log before you answer it.

5. Limits

6. The derivative

7. Rules of differentiation

8. The chain rule

9. Integration and the fundamental theorem

10. Series and convergence

School courses beside the project: precalculus finished and calculus started, and physics. Take electricity and magnetism when the school offers it.

Electrical engineering

Write the expected output of a signal or a circuit before you look at the measurement. Use a derivative or an integral if the quantity is a rate or an accumulation. Take electricity and magnetism when the school offers it.

Done when the prediction is dated earlier than the measurement, and a second person has checked the setup rather than only the prose.

This week. Pick one number the circuit will show: a voltage at a midpoint, or the time until a lamp is half as bright. Write that number and the time of day in the log before you measure. Measure after. A second person checks that the meter is on the quantity your equation names.

Log for this week. Date and clock time of prediction. Predicted number. Measured number. Second person’s check that the meter matched the equation.

Grade 12 — an artifact a stranger can grade

Same project. The artifact is what a stranger can grade. One reviewer has watched the work long enough to describe it.

Every week, until that artifact is the one you send:

1. Use the mathematics your first college course will assume, on this project, with units.
2. Keep the claim in a piece a reviewer can check against the sources.
3. Let a primary source carry the claim. A summary does not.
4. Write in the log what would change the conclusion.

Finish these rungs:

28. Vectors
29. Matrices as transformations
30. Systems, determinants, rank
31. Basis and change of basis

School courses beside the project: calculus underway or complete. By the end of this year the lab sequence is biology, chemistry, and physics.

Electrical engineering

The same report, about a circuit or a signal: predicted equation, measured table or plot, reason for the error. A second person checks the measurement setup. Complex numbers, vectors, or a linear system belong in the model when the circuit uses them.

Done when the checker’s note agrees that the setup measures the quantity the equation names.

This week. Make a two-column table. Fill the predicted column, including the time you wrote it, before you fill the measured column. One row is enough: voltage or time. Ask a second person to say, in a sentence, whether the meter measured the quantity in the equation.

Log for this week. Date and time of predicted column. Predicted value. Measured value. Second person’s sentence on whether the meter matched the equation.

What you send

The application is this project. By the time you apply, the file has these parts:

1. The grade 12 artifact for your track.
2. The log, showing the same question across four years and what changed.
3. A letter from the person outside your household who tried to break the work.
4. The course record this lesson names: calculus and the lab sequence where your track requires them. Also take the courses your desired college publishes as required. If one of those crowds out the project, add it around the project. Do not drop the lab line or the mathematics line to make room for an elective.
5. The undergraduate admission test that college requires, on the calendar that college publishes. If your track has a mathematics line, take the test after that mathematics is underway. This is not the medical-school, law-school, or doctoral test, and it is not a substitute for the project.
6. An essay that states the claim, the best objection, and what the project changed. It is not a list of activities.

What you enroll in

The first year of college keeps the next gate open. Add a course only when it serves that gate.

Once a week, in the hardest course you are in, take one problem the exam could ask. Close the notes. Write the diagram, the equation, or the rule before you look up the solution. Record whether you finished it and where the solution disagreed. That page is the log. A course you only follow in lecture is not done.

Electrical engineering. Calculus, linear algebra, differential equations, calculus-based electricity and magnetism, and a circuits course with a lab. Write the expected measurement before you take it.

Through the degree, to the gate

The first year is the start. The gate opens only if the later courses are the same kind of work.

Electrical engineering. After the first circuits course: a second circuits course, electronics, and signals and systems. Then electromagnetics, and probability for random signals. The lab habit does not change: predict, then measure. Graduate electrical engineering expects circuits, signals, electronics, and that mathematics already finished.