Last year, I read an article in Time magazine that said the number one reason high school dropouts give for leaving school is boredom. I identify completely. When I think about all the years I spent sitting in class, the time slowly ticking by, what stands out above all my feelings of frustration, resentment and entrapment, is an overwhelming feeling of boredom. I never found school all that interesting.

At the time, I didn’t realize that my boredom would one day be the key to my freedom. Less than halfway through high school, I actually found a way to get out of school altogether – and not by dropping out.

I never had to work hard to get decent grades, so I didn’t bother to. I wrote essays the night before and crammed for tests the morning of. In class, my favorite game was figuring out how much time we were wasting.

My numbers game

I’d take the number of hours spent in school each day and subtract the time allotted for gym and lunch, the time we spent sitting around and talking, and the time spent on administrative stuff (like checking homework) or time-fillers (like watching movies). Teachers may have considered these activities a valuable part of the learning process, but to me they felt like a waste of time.

The number that remained was the amount of time spent, as educators like to call it, “on task.” Although I went to a suburban public high school in Westchester with a great reputation, I found that we consistently spent only about half of the school day on task.

I fantasized about what I’d do with all that wasted time if only there were some way to get it back. I made lists of the books I wanted to read, languages I wanted to learn and countries I wanted to visit. Instead, I was trapped in high school. Each day the ceiling seemed to lower and the hallways seemed to close in on me.

Then, one day during sophomore year, I decided to add up how many credits I’d need to graduate. The answer surprised me. Even though I’d be entering my junior year the next fall and I hadn’t taken any extra classes along the way, I was already close to fulfilling New York state’s minimum requirements for graduation. I had only a little over a year’s worth of credits left to complete.

Working the system

If I took a semester of government and a semester of economics (typically senior year courses) during my junior year, the only requirement I’d have left was a single credit in English, which I could easily take over the summer. I was elated. Here, at last, was my way out.

I was sure I could get my parents on my side. The only stumbling block would be getting the school to agree. I wasn’t the most popular student in the guidance office. I was always in there for something – trying to change my schedule around, wanting to get into a certain class or have a certain teacher.

My perspective was: If you don’t learn to work the system, you’ll never get anything accomplished. But my guidance counselor saw me as self-centered and demanding. “You can’t always get what you want,” she’d say sharply.

The rules were on my side

I knew that when I met with my guidance counselor, and then the head guidance counselor (who, if possible, liked me even less), I’d have to be prepared. So I carefully formulated my plan. I read all the fine print in my high school’s course catalogue regarding graduation requirements. I went on the New York State Education Department’s Web site and carefully went over the state’s graduation requirements.

Then I laid out my case to the counselors. Since the rules were on my side, they couldn’t say no. (My guidance counselor dealt with this turn of events by convincing herself she’d thought it was a keen idea from the start and that, heck, maybe it was even her idea to begin with!)

And that’s how, at the end of junior year (pending an English course that I took over the summer) I officially finished my high school education.

Senior year in Paris

Finally my time belonged to me. I spent the fall of what would have been my senior year working in my town’s library, writing for New Youth Connections and taking college classes in the evening. I spent two months living with my godmother outside of Paris, studying French and learning way more than I had from my years of French vocabulary quizzes.

In the spring, while my friends were taking far too many A.P. exams, I left for Poland to spend six weeks interning with an American investment firm.

This past fall, fresh from a year of life-without-school, I entered Hampshire College, a small liberal arts college in western Massachusetts. Hampshire was founded to be an “experimenting institution.” Students design their own areas of concentration instead of picking a major, and professors write student evaluations, instead of giving letter grades. I picked Hampshire because I wanted my college experience to be radically different from my years of compulsory schooling.

‘You’re really lucky’

My choice to do things differently hasn’t always been easy. During my year off from school, I can’t tell you how many times some well-meaning adult stopped me to ask, “Don’t you have school today?” At the beginning of the year, crazy rumors circulated among my former classmates about why I wasn’t in school. (Apparently I was pregnant, in rehab, at boarding school and in London – all at the same time.)

But most people’s reactions were positive. A surprising number of adults told me stories about how they took time off before, during or after college, or about how they didn’t and have always regretted it. And while I got the occasional, “But what about prom?” most of my peers seemed to think what I’d done was pretty darn cool.

During that year and since then, a few people have also said, “Wow, you’re really lucky. I could never do that.”

I don’t always know how to respond. Because, yeah, I was really lucky. And maybe it’s unrealistic for them to do the same thing I did. They may not have supportive parents, solid grades, a cooperative school behind them or a carefully laid-out plan for the future.

There are other choices

But that doesn’t mean things are hopeless for all the other bored high school students out there. I think the most important thing that I did was decide to take control of my education and my future.

Not everyone can or wants to graduate from high school early, but anyone who puts their mind to it can change their attitude. I wouldn’t have achieved anything by being passive and complacent. For teens who aren’t satisfied with their high school, there are choices and opportunities out there. If you’re assertive and persistent, maybe you can make one of them work for you.