I was contacted by a student in my department (Physics & Astronomy) the other day. To satisfy a course requirement, he needed to interview someone from the department to get advice on his path through school and beyond. He probably asked the wrong person.
I asked him if I could record the interview for my records. I feel there’s value in this, whichever direction an interview goes. You never get a second chance to record a discussion. This is also a different format for me to be in compared to what most have heard from me. The recording has an hour of run time.
Advice_for_a_freshman_student.mp3
I talk for a bit about students needing a business plan to go with the investment that they make in a post secondary education. Four to five years and close to a hundred thousand dollars is a devastating gamble that too many make with no understanding of reason, odds, or outcomes. I’ve been working in higher education for about 20 years. I can count on a fraction of one hand the students that I’ve talked to that have a real plan, but I work at a failed school.
It is difficult to hit a target that you aren’t aiming at or is well beyond your reach.
To be clear, I’m not saying that a 19 year old should have every detail of their life specifically mapped out. What I am saying is that having some idea about the cost of and odds of success in what is being proposed is crucial. A long shot bet on a marginal performer is simply stupid. If you plan on becoming a tenured professor, know that 99.99% of people that achieve a PhD can’t attain this, and that’s assuming they had what it took to meet the challenge. Now back up to freshman year and a less than stellar student. More, are they really doing what needs to be done to ensure success….or are they just going through the motions. This shit really matters.
Luck is when opportunity and preparation collide.
The content here is well aligned with a previous post of mine regarding accountability mechanisms. That’s a worthy read if you find time.
At some point I mention a story on late bloomers that David Brooks did for The Atlantic this past summer. It’s worth a read or listen. I feel that I fit into this category as I mention.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/06/successs-late-bloomers-motivation/678798/
I was in a pretty bad place going through high school and entering college. My struggles to survive and find meaning overshadowed everything in those classrooms. I was eventually withdrawn from the University of Massachusetts after a horrendous pair of quarters. A decade later I returned to school with my head screwed on straight. I got A’s and B’s and knew why I was there. Sadly, I was derailed from finishing a mechanical engineering degree. This time due to the failings of others in my family. The story of how we get here is often strange and full of emergency course changes.
At 54, I can look back on my academic and professional careers and speak with a real understanding of what an academic degree means. It means nothing. I’ve known people that dropped out of high school that were brilliant and others with PhD’s that were fucking morons. It is simply not a meaningful measure of intellect or capacity. That’s not to say that students should all quit en masse. The brilliant people that I’ve known in my life worked dam hard at improving their understanding and process every day of their lives. The morons did not. If you are doing that in school, do that. If you’re doing that elsewhere, do that. What is nice about a degree is it checks an important box on a form…that’s about it.
Discipline Eats Motivation For Breakfast – Jocko Willink
Write. Writing is a superpower.
SO YOU WANT TO BE A WRITER
by Charles Bukowski
if it doesn’t come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don’t do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it for money or
fame,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don’t do it.
if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,
don’t do it.
if you’re trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.
if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you’re not ready.
don’t be like so many writers,
don’t be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don’t be dull and boring and
pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don’t add to that.
don’t do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don’t do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don’t do it.
when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.
there is no other way.
and there never was.