Advice for students

• Be challenged. Seek material at the level and pace appropriate for you. Learn with people who aren’t all dumber (or smarter) than you.
• If you’re motivated to learn or build something, do it. If you’re not motivated, don’t force yourself.
• Be aware of but not afraid of what you don’t yet know.
• Some things can’t be learned from textbooks because the textbooks don’t exist, e.g. decision theory.
• Some concepts take a while to really absorb, possibly years. In the words of John von Neumann, “Young man, in mathematics you don’t understand things. You just get used to them.”
• There’s nothing wrong with funding your studies by borrowing against future earnings as long as you’re not overpaying for your education. Internships are great too.
• Don’t do undergrad if you don’t need to. Subjects like mathematics, computer science, and economics can be learned conveniently and effectively using books, videos, and other resources from the internet.
  • E.g. look at the prerequisites list at a university course webpage to make sure you’re ready for a subject, find a textbook (if one doesn’t suit you try another), find a video lecture series as an optional but helpful supplement, and use Q&A forums online if you get stuck.
  • If you need an academic credential, write a paper with a professor in your city and get it published. The mentorship will be valuable and with just publications and reference letters applying to grad school is an option (see e.g. link).
• If you formally take a course, ideally learn the material by yourself beforehand (paradoxical as that sounds).
• Don’t go to a bad grad school. At the graduate level, low-status schools have poor funding, low research activity, and few students.
• Get a thesis supervisor who is unambiguously an expert in the field.
• Attend economics seminars because they’re a blast.
• When I was 17 my lowest grade was in math and I thought I wasn’t good at it. One year later I was obsessed with it. Things can change.