My “work history”
Has been 8 ish, doing yard work around town with 2 other kids (nothing crazy, weeding, push mowing, leaves, clearing brush, etc), and then working at a stables for a bit when 12.
I ended up getting an hourly part time position at campus, at 16 ish I took a break for 2 years, worked in grocery, and then in pharmacy.
18, I ended up back at school. Embarrassingly it took me 3 more years to finish my undergrad. But I worked full time or nearly full time the entire time. (Floater pharmacy tech, part time backup event photographer, and then as a store manager at a hobby store).
I found it very hard to make friends with people my own age, but found it incredibly easy to make friends with returning students - either they had worked a career and came back to school, or had done some time in the military etc., I also made some great friends who had moved to the U.S., usually as late teens, from developing countries.
Knowledge, perspectives, etc I learned from these people … and from some people I ended up being very lucky to work with, honestly proved in hindsight to be much more impactful and valuable to my life and career then I could have ever imagined.
I will say, tongue in cheek, but also some truth:
You could probably apply the anna karenina principle to all of the people I can think of who were impactful in some way… either through the lens of trauma/ struggle / or dysfunctional family. (This would also apply to myself!)
The person you need to show mercy to most is yourself. And to do that you have to understad how everyone else lives.
I always thought the alternative to "gifted programs" is not having a program which is even worse. At some point optimizing teaching becomes unaffordable.
But I don't credit those schools for my success. Nor do I credit native intelligence. My two elder brothers are lawyers whose names you likely know; think of the largest case in recent history. One is severely dyslexic and the other I'd wager is mildly autistic. I'm a college dropout. Oddly, I earn more per hour designing databases than the famous one does taking down large companies. What we had in common was a pattern of learning how to think, how to be curious and ask questions, and how to separate wheat from chaff. All of which came from our grandfather, who was forced to leave a yeshiva at 12 years old, and his father, and his grandfather.
I truly believe that almost all formal education is bunk. It's a useless plaster on a gaping social wound, namely that parents don't have the toolset to teach children a love of learning throughout their lives, along with the methods and skills to do so for themselves. All the information taught in K-12 schools is readily available, yet most adults can't remember a thing about the most basic aspects of history, math or science. The reason being, they weren't interested when they learned it the first time, and they weren't raised to be curious enough to answer their own questions or (re)fill holes in their own knowledge. This is why most people can't utter the words, "I don't know, let's look it up." Moreover, most people don't believe it's their obligation as a person to be as well-rounded as they can make themselves, because no one ever told them that was important.
Learning itself should be taught. And it can be taught at home. Everything else is ephemeral.
I wouldn't underestimate the professors though. Doing research (that is their actual work; teaching is just a hobby) can be hard work.