from @khuyen on linkedin (reposting here so insights are centralized)
" A few input from my experiences:
- besides asking "what you want to do after graduation", also ask "who & what kind of person I want to be around". The who matters a lot.
- recommend applying Michael Horn s JTBD framework to choose educational experiences like a major in his phenomenal book "Choosing College". I found that just by reflecting on those jobs helped me make much better decisions. The 5 jobs are "Help me get into my best school: the classic experience relying on traditional rankings;
Help me do what’s expected of me: fulfilling parent and teacher expectations (a terrible and often expensive reason to go to school);
Help me get away: a move away from an unpleasant situation, but not necessarily toward something positive; Help me step it up: with anticipated events, a decision to be better; and Help me extend myself: the personal decision to invest in self-improvement. "
Another note is thinking about the types of people who choose the major. For example, do all the bio majors want to be pre-med? What is the work ethic of people in anthropology?
It’s important to value why people end up in a class. I would way rather go to a class that has an application process vs not. People choose to be there and are more intentional. Class is more intimate. To me that is more valuable than being in a room where the subject matter is ‘more’ interesting or aligned.
good insight. who you are surrounded by can affect overall growth experience, or lack there of.
that starts with choosing which university is generally a fit at macro level, then within that it's what the major is like, which can change over time.
Most people I know are actually especially unsure of what they want to do after graduation! hehe.
They then choose a major based on the match of: 1) their present interests and skills; 2) something that will give them the most chances of making enough money later on. Ideally this also comes as PG’s staying upwind (not only in $).
I like the emphasis on exploring stuff both in the summers and through extracurriculars. I think that can help :)
Michael's covered good points on how to choose a major so I'll first cover a point on how *not* to choose a major before I add my perspective to his post.
How not to choose a major:
Based on mimesis. In his book, Wanting [1], Luke Burgis shares his motivation for studying investment banking in college. He didn't know what to major in and per Michael's earliest point agreed that the education system made it difficult to decide what to major in. So, Luke followed the crowd and chose what others, who he perceived as knowing what they were doing, chose. Point 5 in Michael's summary of how to choose a major is a good one since it relates to developing thick desires. In other words, thinking independently about how to choose a topic to major in. I've linked an article [2] below that shares an exercise to reflect on your thick desires. This will give you evidence to evaluate Michael's first point, thinking about what you want to do post-graduation.
Adding to Michael's thoughts:
A helpful mental question for me is: "is this the lowest brick?" This question relates to building a house (my analogy for knowledge building) and helps me think through the fundamentals of a topic and decide if I'm at the base or not. I like to start at the bottom and work my way up since I can play with the material in the subject much more after learning the fundamentals deeply. Practically, an example for students might be choosing to major in math or economics. While many students might think economics is best, I'd recommend math because, with a deep understanding of math you will understand economics. The inverse is not true, learning economics will give you a few applied principles but nowhere near the flexibility and breadth math offers. Transferability matters here too since the fundamentals of nature (hard sciences, math) are applied to every subject so you can easily get into the door and contribute.
In the last part of Michael's dialogue on weighing different options for majors, Keith Rabois had a good talk at KV's recent summit [3] where he shared how Reid Hoffman makes decisions. Tl;dr: Pros and cons lists give your mind a false equivalence since the criteria is in table format and no hierarchy is present. Instead, create a list of your top 5-7 priorities in life and evaluate each decision against the #1 priority on that list. If it's too difficult, only then can you look at #2.
Knowing what the priorities are for you (structure of classes, professors in the program) gives a framework for making decisions about major & opportunities that arise in university too.
how do you decide between going with a breadth-focused major (math) vs a depth-focused major (economics)? can you do a combination of both (depth + breadth)?
optimizing for breadth makes you extremely competent when it comes to understanding how the world works but does not allow you to "major" and be able to build the upper layers of the bricks in your house. optimizing for depth results in an unstable foundation because you didn't add the bricks you needed to add at the lower layers. what do you think of dual-degrees? does it makes sense? is it a way to optimize for a combination of breadth + depth while also building your house?
one way to check out is: get data of the people who currently have the roles you want in the future on linkedin and get a ratio of those who double majored v. those who didnt
another way: reach out to people with each kind of background and ask what they wish they knew before their role. this will get you skills you can focus on and determine if a second major makes sense for your path
think as I get more perspective the easier it'll be for me to understand what I already have mastery in vs what I want to learn + what is the ultimate skillset I need to make real world impact.
some resources I found to be really helpful so far:
Something I wish I thought more about was when school feels like a “waste of time” vs an “investment of time”
For example, I adore learning about philosophy, but philosophy classes in my university felt like a waste of time. They weren’t productive. The assignments nor readings were enriching.
Whereas I felt that learning math was an investment of my time. I felt happier when my degree had more technical elements because I felt better about the ROI.
i felt similar when taking my first philosophy class on campus. there seems to be a difference in relevance + applicability when compared to a math course.
And tangibility. I like the more objective classes because young 19yos don’t pretend like they know everything. I tried taking a women’s theory class and it was terrible. Just felt like we were going in circles.
But, for example, I took a poetry class that was basically a 15 person roundtable discussion every week where we shared poetry we wrote as beginners. I liked that it was maker centric + I learned a great deal about details.
how do you approach learning about topics that you're fascinated in but are a "waste of time' at school? did you start/join philosophy clubs (which I'm assuming would be where you would find groups of people who want to learn philosophy) and/or continue learning philosophy on your own?
I feel like many international students could have cultural/financial/familial pressures dictating what major they should pursue. Was that the case with this student? How would this advice generalize to students with those pressures?
I resonated with what you said about staying in architecture because you found cool people there. I love biology but I didn't find biology classes as enticing because they can consist a lot of pre-meds checking off boxes. I don't intend to pursue pure math as a career, but I loved some of my math classes because I really get along with the kind of person who would take math for fun and could meet people in those classes who I'd want to work on side projects with.
for generalizing advice for students: ask what makes sense for you
- ex. need to make money for tuition? figure out what makes sense for you
- ex. have visa constraints for post grad? figure out what makes sense for you
- ex. have family pressures? figure out what makes sense for you
you can figure out from getting data points from other people in a similar point, or hearing other people's stories. but ultimately, you know your position best.
these blog posts are not meant to be a catch all for everything and everyone, they share n=1 conversations that i think apply to many others at different parts of a process that are often black boxed
p.s. cool resource for anyone thinking about engineering/cs and want to get an idea about all the potential fields in that space: https://github.com/ossu/computer-science
in conversation with a minerva freshman who has time to pick their major, thinking about business but interested in ai:
them: should i switch my major to ai?
me: don't rush to decide right now.
you have times to explore. work on monthly projects outside of school to see if you like coding. for example, do an andrew ng course (16hours total) and work on replicating one of his code bases. doing that over 2-3 months will give you a more tangible way to see what you like or don't like.
also, talk to other majors, ask them what excites them and learn what their path looks like after graduating. business v. cs degree have different leverage points and different paths. find which one you identify with.
being active about it outside of the class, you can get dozens of data points to see what fits.
glad it's helpful. if you have specific questions as they come up feel free to post in the comments as others have. the goal is this is a living document helping people make this decision
from @khuyen on linkedin (reposting here so insights are centralized)
" A few input from my experiences:
- besides asking "what you want to do after graduation", also ask "who & what kind of person I want to be around". The who matters a lot.
- recommend applying Michael Horn s JTBD framework to choose educational experiences like a major in his phenomenal book "Choosing College". I found that just by reflecting on those jobs helped me make much better decisions. The 5 jobs are "Help me get into my best school: the classic experience relying on traditional rankings;
Help me do what’s expected of me: fulfilling parent and teacher expectations (a terrible and often expensive reason to go to school);
Help me get away: a move away from an unpleasant situation, but not necessarily toward something positive; Help me step it up: with anticipated events, a decision to be better; and Help me extend myself: the personal decision to invest in self-improvement. "
Another note is thinking about the types of people who choose the major. For example, do all the bio majors want to be pre-med? What is the work ethic of people in anthropology?
It’s important to value why people end up in a class. I would way rather go to a class that has an application process vs not. People choose to be there and are more intentional. Class is more intimate. To me that is more valuable than being in a room where the subject matter is ‘more’ interesting or aligned.
good insight. who you are surrounded by can affect overall growth experience, or lack there of.
that starts with choosing which university is generally a fit at macro level, then within that it's what the major is like, which can change over time.
I like the “is this the first brick” stance
Most people I know are actually especially unsure of what they want to do after graduation! hehe.
They then choose a major based on the match of: 1) their present interests and skills; 2) something that will give them the most chances of making enough money later on. Ideally this also comes as PG’s staying upwind (not only in $).
I like the emphasis on exploring stuff both in the summers and through extracurriculars. I think that can help :)
timeless advice for staying up wind - sharing for anyone in the comments - http://www.paulgraham.com/hs.html
Michael's covered good points on how to choose a major so I'll first cover a point on how *not* to choose a major before I add my perspective to his post.
How not to choose a major:
Based on mimesis. In his book, Wanting [1], Luke Burgis shares his motivation for studying investment banking in college. He didn't know what to major in and per Michael's earliest point agreed that the education system made it difficult to decide what to major in. So, Luke followed the crowd and chose what others, who he perceived as knowing what they were doing, chose. Point 5 in Michael's summary of how to choose a major is a good one since it relates to developing thick desires. In other words, thinking independently about how to choose a topic to major in. I've linked an article [2] below that shares an exercise to reflect on your thick desires. This will give you evidence to evaluate Michael's first point, thinking about what you want to do post-graduation.
Adding to Michael's thoughts:
A helpful mental question for me is: "is this the lowest brick?" This question relates to building a house (my analogy for knowledge building) and helps me think through the fundamentals of a topic and decide if I'm at the base or not. I like to start at the bottom and work my way up since I can play with the material in the subject much more after learning the fundamentals deeply. Practically, an example for students might be choosing to major in math or economics. While many students might think economics is best, I'd recommend math because, with a deep understanding of math you will understand economics. The inverse is not true, learning economics will give you a few applied principles but nowhere near the flexibility and breadth math offers. Transferability matters here too since the fundamentals of nature (hard sciences, math) are applied to every subject so you can easily get into the door and contribute.
[1] - https://lukeburgis.com/wanting/
[2] - https://luke.medium.com/your-core-motivational-drives-c269c35defd2
VKhosla has a good article on the liberal arts w/some general advice on choosing majors: https://medium.com/@vkhosla/is-majoring-in-liberal-arts-a-mistake-for-students-fd9d20c8532e
In the last part of Michael's dialogue on weighing different options for majors, Keith Rabois had a good talk at KV's recent summit [3] where he shared how Reid Hoffman makes decisions. Tl;dr: Pros and cons lists give your mind a false equivalence since the criteria is in table format and no hierarchy is present. Instead, create a list of your top 5-7 priorities in life and evaluate each decision against the #1 priority on that list. If it's too difficult, only then can you look at #2.
Knowing what the priorities are for you (structure of classes, professors in the program) gives a framework for making decisions about major & opportunities that arise in university too.
[3] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpmVb1rvnBA&pp=ygUPa2VpdGggcmFib2lzIGt2
thanks for sharing the extra resources! i like the inversion of what not to do as well as thinking of it from 'lowest brick' for fundamentals
how do you decide between going with a breadth-focused major (math) vs a depth-focused major (economics)? can you do a combination of both (depth + breadth)?
optimizing for breadth makes you extremely competent when it comes to understanding how the world works but does not allow you to "major" and be able to build the upper layers of the bricks in your house. optimizing for depth results in an unstable foundation because you didn't add the bricks you needed to add at the lower layers. what do you think of dual-degrees? does it makes sense? is it a way to optimize for a combination of breadth + depth while also building your house?
when thinking about dual major - think about the opportunity cost for other ways of learning....
my recc is pick 1 major, and use the extra time to get experience outside of the classroom:
- take random classes like logic in philosophy or a produce design course
- seek research experience at labs on campus or other campuses
- work on side projects or intern at a startup
^ losing out in majoring in "internet studies," ie. things you can do remotely with best in the world, or experiences is a real trade off.
both of those seem like breadth options, as they are a general lense to view the world
so when thinking about that, my recc is think about 1) how can this skillset be applied and 2) how does it connect with your goals after graduation
re: 1 for example:
math can be applied in scientific research, topics in engineering, machine learning, and other areas
someone like @jack chose math because it connects to his larger goals of doing research in quantum computing, which requires math heavy background - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-ceroni-687ab5154/?originalSubdomain=ca
econ is more traditional in applications of policy or business analysis
re: 2 - check out roles of people you may want to have after graduation and see what their background is
for you in AV space - what are backgrounds for engineers at cruise? or if you want more of a PM position, what are people's paths there?
^ then talk to them. reach out and talk with people to see how their major helped (or didn't help) their path
it's surprising today how little relevance majors can have in the long run
this makes a lot of sense - determine end goal and work backwards from there to figure out, thanks so much!
are there situations where dual-majoring make more sense than single major?
one way to check out is: get data of the people who currently have the roles you want in the future on linkedin and get a ratio of those who double majored v. those who didnt
another way: reach out to people with each kind of background and ask what they wish they knew before their role. this will get you skills you can focus on and determine if a second major makes sense for your path
think as I get more perspective the easier it'll be for me to understand what I already have mastery in vs what I want to learn + what is the ultimate skillset I need to make real world impact.
some resources I found to be really helpful so far:
https://github.com/geohot/fromthetransistor
https://blog.gregbrockman.com/its-time-to-become-an-ml-engineer
p.s. reddit is also a goldmine in finding a community of people who have similar questions + people who are willing to give advice
thanks for sharing! and when talking to a phd at mit (undergrad in EE, 2x masters in applied math and ML, and now doing a PhD in bio)
they mentioned... that ML skills are more accessible than ever. you can do in 1-3 semesters what previously needed a whole degree
with so many people now getting a CS degree, one unfair advantage is figure out what skillset you want to focus on and self learn or minor in cs
for example for you that could be electrical engineering for hardware
for others that may be chemical engineering, bio engineering, applied physics or other topics
This is all excellent advice.
Something I wish I thought more about was when school feels like a “waste of time” vs an “investment of time”
For example, I adore learning about philosophy, but philosophy classes in my university felt like a waste of time. They weren’t productive. The assignments nor readings were enriching.
Whereas I felt that learning math was an investment of my time. I felt happier when my degree had more technical elements because I felt better about the ROI.
i felt similar when taking my first philosophy class on campus. there seems to be a difference in relevance + applicability when compared to a math course.
And tangibility. I like the more objective classes because young 19yos don’t pretend like they know everything. I tried taking a women’s theory class and it was terrible. Just felt like we were going in circles.
I’m maker-minded so I prefer creation > discussion
But, for example, I took a poetry class that was basically a 15 person roundtable discussion every week where we shared poetry we wrote as beginners. I liked that it was maker centric + I learned a great deal about details.
how do you approach learning about topics that you're fascinated in but are a "waste of time' at school? did you start/join philosophy clubs (which I'm assuming would be where you would find groups of people who want to learn philosophy) and/or continue learning philosophy on your own?
I feel like many international students could have cultural/financial/familial pressures dictating what major they should pursue. Was that the case with this student? How would this advice generalize to students with those pressures?
I resonated with what you said about staying in architecture because you found cool people there. I love biology but I didn't find biology classes as enticing because they can consist a lot of pre-meds checking off boxes. I don't intend to pursue pure math as a career, but I loved some of my math classes because I really get along with the kind of person who would take math for fun and could meet people in those classes who I'd want to work on side projects with.
appreciate the perspective!
for generalizing advice for students: ask what makes sense for you
- ex. need to make money for tuition? figure out what makes sense for you
- ex. have visa constraints for post grad? figure out what makes sense for you
- ex. have family pressures? figure out what makes sense for you
you can figure out from getting data points from other people in a similar point, or hearing other people's stories. but ultimately, you know your position best.
these blog posts are not meant to be a catch all for everything and everyone, they share n=1 conversations that i think apply to many others at different parts of a process that are often black boxed
p.s. cool resource for anyone thinking about engineering/cs and want to get an idea about all the potential fields in that space: https://github.com/ossu/computer-science
thanks for sharing!
in conversation with a minerva freshman who has time to pick their major, thinking about business but interested in ai:
them: should i switch my major to ai?
me: don't rush to decide right now.
you have times to explore. work on monthly projects outside of school to see if you like coding. for example, do an andrew ng course (16hours total) and work on replicating one of his code bases. doing that over 2-3 months will give you a more tangible way to see what you like or don't like.
also, talk to other majors, ask them what excites them and learn what their path looks like after graduating. business v. cs degree have different leverage points and different paths. find which one you identify with.
being active about it outside of the class, you can get dozens of data points to see what fits.
Thank you so much for this post! I was confused about how to approach picking a major and this gave me great insights + points to reflect on
glad it's helpful. if you have specific questions as they come up feel free to post in the comments as others have. the goal is this is a living document helping people make this decision