A letter to college students
In the past few years, I have had the opportunity to meet and interact with quite a few students who have begun their college journey or are currently in the application process. When I was in that position, I was confused, and I also had a hard time figuring out what worked best for me. I did have the advantage of getting advice from a very wide variety of people.
Here I have some advice and notes that helped me make the most out of my college experience. Hopefully, someone who reads this will find it useful too.
1. Make a List of Goals
After I had finalized which college I am going to based on the major I had picked, I made a list of goals for myself. This list of goals I had, I was mostly able to fulfill by the time I graduated. The list included experiences I wanted to gain while I was in college. Some of these included getting involved in research, starting my club, winning a hackathon, and joining a dance team. In the list of goals, prioritize two or three. I did not accomplish all of these, but I was able to accomplish the goals I prioritized.
2. Choosing between skill Specialization or Diversification
Everyone in the world has struggles when faced with this problem. Based on your personality, you might lean towards one more than the other. There is no wrong choice, but knowing what you lean towards will help you make clearer and objective decisions. You will eventually experience a limit. If you like specializing, then there will be a point when you don’t want to specialize anymore, similar to diversification. Through trial and error, you will eventually figure out what combination works best for you, and you will be able to use what you lean towards to add your work in a unique way, which will eventually be recognized.
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I lean towards diversification, but I choose specialized paths since I wanted to get involved in research. I was interested in physics, but my major was computer science and engineering, so I believed getting involved in quantum computing research would be the perfect combination, and it was initially. This combination didn’t work out very well for me because I spread myself far too thin. There wasn’t enough overlap in my major and this field. I felt myself falling behind in both, which wasn’t very encouraging. Pivoting towards different fields gave me a more balanced way to specialize in a field with a diverse set of use cases that would keep me naturally involved without burning myself out.
3. Learn your limits
Use your time in college to learn your limits. Spending time making insightful observations about yourself will help you in the future. This can range from how much you spend each month to what the limits on your current skill sets are, as well as how much you would like to improve. Learn your fitness and health limits. How many hours of sleep do you need? How does getting less or more sleep affect you? How long can you truly stay focused? Bring your perception of yourself and reality of who you are close as you possibly can. Only when you know your limits can you honestly work on improving yourself.
In college, I learned one major limit about myself. I had a very difficult time saying no to anyone who needed help with anything. I would feel better helping other people with concepts, topics, and debugging than trying to get an A in a class. Helping people and troubleshooting engaged the problem-solving part of my brain a lot more than a grade possibly could. I realised this limit was preventing me from being good at what I do because I would settle for problems I could solve instead of trying to build skills that would help me solve more interesting problems in the future.
4. Build a reputation
Everyone has a reputation, whether you like it or not. It is usually based on your habits. College is the perfect time to intentionally build one. Do you want to be considered a reliable friend, a problem solver, or even determined? At the end of the day, your reputation is determined by people around you, but you do have a say in the narrative. Those of you who have moved between different countries or states must already know how this works. Similarly, when you go to do an internship or work in a corporate environment. Your reputation is really the only perception most people will get from you or care to remember, so try building one that will help open up doors of opportunities wherever they may exist.
