Grad School Top Tips
When my older brother was an undergrad, he wrote me a guide for surviving high school. His 21-year-old words of wisdom included gems such as “If you really want to be rich, it’s not just going to come to you while you get stoned on the couch” and “You need to change your attitude and general direction of your life.” His delivery may not have been tactful but his message was valid. I was pretty delusional at 17 and definitely smoking too much weed, but I heeded his advice. 15 years later, I’m writing this as a grad student at MIT. My Brother has decided to go back to school, too. As he begins his journey at the National University of Singapore, I now have the opportunity to return the favor. So here it is, my top tips for thriving in grad school. Enjoy.
1. Make friends quickly and easily: Be gregarious, affectionate, and supportive of your classmates. Grad school is challenging. People come from all over the world, leaving their families, friends, and communities to participate. Don’t delay in cultivating community. At the end of the day, the lasting friendships you create will pay the greatest dividends.
2. Be ambitious in your projects: Have vision. Don’t be realistic. Realistic projects don’t contain the energy required for excellence. Grad school is just a training ground for real life. If you’re not ambitious here, you probably won’t be anywhere else, either. People respect and appreciate ambition if it’s followed up with serious effort. Go for it.
3. Ask better questions: It’s difficult to ask too many well-timed and well-formulated questions. If there are 60 people in a room, a one-minute question is an hour of human attention. Think through your curiosity. Concisely ask the most useful version of your question. The person most willing to frequently admit ignorance learns the most and everyone stands to benefit.
4. Take your education seriously: School is expensive. Focus. Encourage high performance from yourself and others, including your professors. Do good work that you will be proud of and that will serve you for years to come. Some of the best learning opportunities exist outside the regularly scheduled programming. Be tastefully aggressive in seeking them out.
5. But not too seriously: The corollary to #4. Lightheartedness and levity have genuine utility. People resent those who are too competitive and avoid those who miss the forest for the trees. Keeping it real while you’re in the shit is a critical life skill that grad school gives you the opportunity to practice. You and everyone you know will eventually be dead. Relax lah.
6. Be confident: No one really knows what’s going on. Everyone is figuring it out as they go. Grad school is an asymmetric risk environment where the downside is protected and the upside is unknown. That means returns on confidence are temporarily exaggerated. Put yourself out there, even if you don’t know what you’re doing.
7. Be open-minded: The corollary to #6. Be curious. Be open to adopting new core beliefs. Be willing to stand corrected. Pay attention to inputs from others that trigger you. There’s information there about your unarticulated insecurities. Grad school is a unique opportunity to rewire your brain in the context of abundant new information. Go forth humbly.
8. Be old-school: Write thank-you cards to those who made a special impact on you. Buy coffee for people you want to get to know. Follow up. Avoid shitty habits that prevent you from showing up as the best version of yourself. Be a gentleman and a scholar. Share love without reservation but have a plan to kill everyone in the room.
9. Experiment: Grad school is a rare break from the patterns of normal life. Discover the unique flavor of self-awareness that comes from deep experimentation. Try out new personalities. Take a different approach to familiar things. Play devil’s advocate. Defend ideas you disagree with. Try out new habits and protocols. Role-play positions you’re uncomfortable with. Fuck around and find out.
10. Play the infinite game: Disregard short-term outcomes. Anyone you meet could end up being the relationship of a lifetime. Any project you work on could end up being your life’s work. Nurture every idea and relationship as a potential source of infinite abundance. The ultimate W is measured across the scale of the rest of your life.
That’s it. Nothing my brother didn’t already know but all good things to hear again. I hope these reminders contribute to your success, wherever you are in the world!
