I’m curious what advice people have for confused undergraduates. It often feels as if the majority of the career advice is targeted to people who already show promising potential in one form or another, however some people like me might find it especially difficult to figure out their aptitudes and interests at an early level.
I dropped out of high school at some point and was somewhat of a delinquent. I used to do pretty well across the board back in middle school, but I don’t think that gives much insight (middle school is not that difficult). My state tests also showed that when I applied myself I similarly did well across a variety of domains. The GED was straight forward and I’d received good test scores without the need to study (but the GED is not too difficult either). I don’t have any actual skills. No programming, no handywork, maybe a modest bit of communication and people skills as I continue to work in customer service, but not much else. I don’t even really recall most of my studies. I’m not exactly sure how I passed the GED.
Now I’m trying to figure out practical steps to explore and build up something. But it’s especially difficult for me to figure out what to prioritize at this moment. There are so many things I want to learn, (not even necessarily for an impactful career, but rather in and of itself) yet I only have so much time and so much money to explore my interests. And I’m feeling like I might be running low on the later.
How am I supposed to balance my time and still be “effective”? How do I go on about and choose what I ought to do? Do I spend extra time at school and be extra active in extracurricular, student organizations, and non academic groups simply spreading myself out in order to find some promising paths? Is there any opportunity for people like me to work at one of these Effective Altruism organizations given the extremely competitive talent pool that hiring managers are fishing from?
I’ve been really interested to get more personal advising, but I’ve put the application process on hold for a while. Writing it out like this helps to calm my nerves down somewhat. But yeah, I feel like I’m in a hard spot and not sure how to proceed going forward.
Also I apologize if the writing comes across as messy. I haven’t been taking as good a care of myself as I probably ought to.
Hi Warren, thanks for this comment. I feel for your situation- in my undergrad I jumped between majors and wasn’t sure what skills I wanted to develop, and I was worried that coming from a non-prestigious public college in Canada that there wouldn’t be a place for me in these more competitive roles. This sounds like a cliche, but it was helpful for me at the time: relentlessly focus on what you can control. We don’t choose the cards we’re dealt to start out in life, but you have a remarkable amount of freedom in college to try out projects, explore different options, and get really good at something. College can be your ‘training montage.’
As you identified with the GED, there’s no speed limit. Once you’ve identified a rare and valuable skill that helps solve a pressing problem, you should try to obsessively improve at it. If you haven’t identified that yet, test your fit with small projects that let you try out different skills and interests efficiently, like taking a range of courses, writing something for a personal site, trying a weekend coding project, etc. You’ll want to balance explore/exploit strategies.
The specifics will really depend on your situation. One way to look for your advantage is to ask yourself “which things feel like work for other people, but energize me?” For myself it started with a political philosophy course that I loved (and which introduced me to Peter Singer), but maybe you just haven’t found that spark yet. I’d encourage you not to compare yourself to others who got luckier or are farther along, but to compare to where you’ve been and where you might have been if you didn’t step up. You should be proud of getting your GED and being where you are now.
Also, I don’t think your writing was messy. It seems like you’ve identified a feeling a lot of people have.
I’m curious what advice people have for confused undergraduates. It often feels as if the majority of the career advice is targeted to people who already show promising potential in one form or another, however some people like me might find it especially difficult to figure out their aptitudes and interests at an early level.
I dropped out of high school at some point and was somewhat of a delinquent. I used to do pretty well across the board back in middle school, but I don’t think that gives much insight (middle school is not that difficult). My state tests also showed that when I applied myself I similarly did well across a variety of domains. The GED was straight forward and I’d received good test scores without the need to study (but the GED is not too difficult either). I don’t have any actual skills. No programming, no handywork, maybe a modest bit of communication and people skills as I continue to work in customer service, but not much else. I don’t even really recall most of my studies. I’m not exactly sure how I passed the GED.
Now I’m trying to figure out practical steps to explore and build up something. But it’s especially difficult for me to figure out what to prioritize at this moment. There are so many things I want to learn, (not even necessarily for an impactful career, but rather in and of itself) yet I only have so much time and so much money to explore my interests. And I’m feeling like I might be running low on the later.
How am I supposed to balance my time and still be “effective”? How do I go on about and choose what I ought to do? Do I spend extra time at school and be extra active in extracurricular, student organizations, and non academic groups simply spreading myself out in order to find some promising paths? Is there any opportunity for people like me to work at one of these Effective Altruism organizations given the extremely competitive talent pool that hiring managers are fishing from?
I’ve been really interested to get more personal advising, but I’ve put the application process on hold for a while. Writing it out like this helps to calm my nerves down somewhat. But yeah, I feel like I’m in a hard spot and not sure how to proceed going forward.
Also I apologize if the writing comes across as messy. I haven’t been taking as good a care of myself as I probably ought to.
Hi Warren, thanks for this comment. I feel for your situation- in my undergrad I jumped between majors and wasn’t sure what skills I wanted to develop, and I was worried that coming from a non-prestigious public college in Canada that there wouldn’t be a place for me in these more competitive roles. This sounds like a cliche, but it was helpful for me at the time: relentlessly focus on what you can control. We don’t choose the cards we’re dealt to start out in life, but you have a remarkable amount of freedom in college to try out projects, explore different options, and get really good at something. College can be your ‘training montage.’
As you identified with the GED, there’s no speed limit. Once you’ve identified a rare and valuable skill that helps solve a pressing problem, you should try to obsessively improve at it. If you haven’t identified that yet, test your fit with small projects that let you try out different skills and interests efficiently, like taking a range of courses, writing something for a personal site, trying a weekend coding project, etc. You’ll want to balance explore/exploit strategies.
The specifics will really depend on your situation. One way to look for your advantage is to ask yourself “which things feel like work for other people, but energize me?” For myself it started with a political philosophy course that I loved (and which introduced me to Peter Singer), but maybe you just haven’t found that spark yet. I’d encourage you not to compare yourself to others who got luckier or are farther along, but to compare to where you’ve been and where you might have been if you didn’t step up. You should be proud of getting your GED and being where you are now.
Also, I don’t think your writing was messy. It seems like you’ve identified a feeling a lot of people have.