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My Advice to Incoming College Freshmen

Hi, I am a college senior. If you are an incoming college freshman, here is my advice:

There is no path I can tell you to take, and the most valuable college experiences occur when you don't know what to do and you figure it out on your own. Thus, I will only say 4 things:

  1. Prestigious careers are NOT reserved for people with incredibly high natural intelligence. They are reserved for people who want them the most. They get up and try their hardest every day over the course of a long period of time. You can become a doctor, lawyer, bodybuilder, quantum physicist, tiktoker, paramedic—pretty much anything. Book recommendation: Atomic Habits

  2. Be a good person. Life is peaceful & people start respecting your ideas if you appear calm, composed, mature, and do no harm to others. Book recommendation: The Let Them Theory and/or Right Thing, Right Now

  3. Understand there are hundreds of scientists at Meta and Bytedance trying to ruin your life. These scientists spend 40+ hours a week studying the optimal ways to get kids addicted to screens. Limit your non-productive screen time to 1 hour a day and you will become happier. Book recommendation: The Anxious Generation

  4. Just do things. If you want to jetski, dune surf, climb a mountain, join a frat/sorority, learn to surf, start a company—just try. You don't have to be successful, just get up and try it. There is no book for this one, literally just get up and do something interesting.

I could list 100s of bullet points if I wanted to tell you what exactly to do. However, you learn the most when you are not told what to do. Go out there and do stuff that feels right. – Gavin