I know that a lot of you programmers out there are probably known as nerds in your school (if you are not in school, then when you WERE in school). For me, I am known as a nerd, because I own a lot of calculators, and I am almost always programming when we have down time in class.

I want you to answer the poll and give me your perspective in school and what people see in you.

I want to get to know you guys a little better, and this topic is in the forums, so everyone can know each other a little better.

I wonder what you guys have to say. Thanks!

I answered "Sort of" because I am known to be smart and interested in a lot of different topics, but I'm not really smart in the "Straight-A Student" way. There are many people who have a better GPA than me or a better ACT/SAT score than me. In light of that however, people know me as someone who is quite intelligent and can generally help if they need help with something (someone even asked me to make a quadratic formula calculator for them even, which is a great honor in my book because I love making my talents useful for the masses).

So, yeah. I'm known as a nerd, but not a high achiever (I'm actually quite lazy).

I went to high school before many of you, but I was widely taunted as "calculator boy", a badge I like to believe that I wore proudly. I suspect many of you have held similar distinctions over the years.

I too was known as the calculator guy in high school. I received a gag prize at prom for being the "geekiest" student (with a certificate signed by both campus directors)
I feel like this image needs to be adressed

This one too

I'm know as really smart because of my high ACT score, sometimes I don't like the attention though, because people resent me for it.

How did you find that amazing photo of me, mr womp womp? And why does it say "HAND" on it? Also, I raise you my photoshopped-out (real, human) prom date:

Honestly, my Pre-Calc class probably thinks of me as the dude who programmed his calculator to recursively calculate the value of e that one time.

I've been called calculator wizard, calculator master and even calculator God. I think my favorite title is the one my computer science teacher gave me, "the perfect geek" since I've got brains and a personality.

I've never been bullied over it fortunately, either because they know I can make their math miserable by bricking their calcs. It could also be because most of my friends are above 6 foot 2 and buff. I'm not sure which.

It' kind of hard to be known as the nerd at a college, but in high school I definitely had a reputation for nerditude. My calculator developments weren't actually known by very many in my school, only really among my closer friends and those who sought my games/math programs (which was, again, few). I do remember making a lot of friends in PreCalc for writing a nice trigonometry program, but aside from that I was known as a nerd for mostly academic reasons.

Well, not really a nerd, that also sounds a bit negative I think. We also don’t call each other like that because I am on vwo (the high level of secondary education in my country). But I am known as the smart guy in my class, because I have high grades in every subject.

(Mostly) Same here...

I was known as the nerd and hung out with other nerds whether it was computer, band, sports or anything else. It was cool because we had cheerleaders and football players in our group; we were a mix of the "popular kids" and the "nerdy kids". It was great.

My main group of friends was about 30 people during lunch and break and about 15 people before school started. Despite being rather reserved and quiet, more-so in HS than I am today, I had a lot of friends and still have quite a few high school friends to this day.

I had written a lot more (I mean A LOT), but removed it because I felt it wasn't to the heart of the topic. Perhaps I'll post it if others share similar things to what I had written.

I guess I am known as a nerd, but I don't think anyone sees it as an insult. If anything, I take it as a compliment because it typically means I just get good grades . Also, I have a lot of interests other than calculator programming that are "nerdy," but I honestly don't even care what people think about me. I think whatever your hobbies are, you shouldn't let what other people think about you influence your decisions.

Kerm, your date is not running Doors CS?

Well, it could be. It's probably just in a different app right then.

I was quite the geek, although not everyone actually knew me.

I got my start in programming in freshman year of high school, and then from sophomore year on I was really going at it. I was in robotics club back in high school too. Whenever I had free time, I was most likely on my calculator programming. Everyone around me knew I was a calculator whiz.

In addition to that, I didn't get my first smart phone until the last semester of my senior year. Had a flip phone previously so the calculator was more fun.


On the bus ride to school, chances are I was either sleeping, or even more likely was that I was on my calculator.

Waiting for class to start? Programming on my calculator.

Bored in spanish class? Coding my game, decryption program, or chatbot at the back of class where the teacher couldn't see me.

Lunch time? I didn't much like the cafeteria. You'd find me out in the halls eating and coding my super awesome text adventure with tons of memory leaks.

Bus ride home from school. Testing out my own platformer game code.

Chilling at robotics. Pondering what I should do next on my text editor.

Sitting in chemistry class. Sharing with others my super secret chemical equation solver program and also telling people how I could code a game with a character that moves around in less than 5 minutes.

Friends in calculus got me excited about fractals and asking if I could make a fractal program.

Even sitting in a big SAT testing room, I remember finishing the test and then making (and then deleting) my own little games on the school calculators just for fun before getting up, or activating lowercase letters or whatever.

I could list so many more examples.


Basically, by the end of high school everyone knew me as the calculator whiz. I don't think any of the teachers ever really noticed. I do programming a tiny bit still, but I've been moving on to other things.

Honestly, you never really realize how good the high school days are until they're gone

Wow. That is a lot of examples. I just graduated high school, and I miss high school, yet we just ended. What are you doing now? Are you in college, or do you have a job, or are you using your parents until they kick you out? And I see that you have a lot of cool programs under your profile. Nice work!

I am currently known as a nerd in school. Mostly because of the fact that I will be the youngest person in my school taking Calculus 2 (the highest math my school offers). This is due to the fact that during this past school year I skipped a full year of math by taking the final ahead of time and passing. I also went to a state-wide math competition where I placed 64th out of ~1600 people, tying with the senior valedictorian of my high school. So to answer plainly, yes I'm known as a nerd.

P.S. I'm the only person at my school who knows that the graphing calculators can even be programmed .

I miss high school too!!!!! I graduated 2 years ago. I've been going to college for the past 2 years but I dropped out in April. Something something college is a scam *cough* I didn't like how my passions were being put in a box, I found myself to be too creative and I have more entrepreneurial dreams. Also the school is conservative christian and I came to realize I was liberal and an atheist.

But I guess I'm getting a bit off topic here. Despite being quite the nerd/geek back in high school, I no longer do much programming anymore. I was majoring in computer science in college but that got less fun as the classes went on. I guess you could call me more of a hobbyist. I do hope I'm able to finish my Fruit Ninja CE program sometime.

I have a normal hourly job, and I stay with my parents but things are getting tight as they want me to contribute more to family expenses especially since I'm no longer in college. As I said I do have some more entrepreneurial tendencies so I'm working on other income streams, and I have a blog but it's not related to programming

Hope that answers your question!