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@harrisonqian / Work Reflections / wiki/obsidian/compiled-advice.md
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--- visibility: public-edit --- # compiled advice to my past self this started as a note to younger me. it grew into a general document of things i've learned that i keep coming back to. not all of this is original — some came from [[mentors|pattern-recognition]], some from experience, some from friends. ## general - lots of life is about optimization: have a goal and achieve it, have a metric and maximize it - always variance. just keep working / trying / whatever - no idea what you can achieve — that's the exciting part - first draft is always bad. iteration is the game - first step is removing distractions; second step is being intentional with time - there's infinite stuff and finite time — the constraint is always time, never options - be crazy. the people i admire most were all a little unhinged in their ambition ## social - unless you really know a person, they are probably less cool and less smart than you think - you are cooler and smarter in comparison than you think - super famous/successful people are often very privileged/lucky. they aren't automatically cool people - to make friends: literally just talk (and be cool) - balance between breadth and depth — gotta know people well AND know lots of people - just reach out. lots of people are very cool. ignore the not cool ones ## school - definitely talk to upperclassmen. super cool, more mature, have all the wisdom - definitely get to know teachers. even cooler than upperclassmen - go to social events: networking, direct happiness, people to talk to about hard stuff - spend time at school socializing, spend time at home working (unless hyper locked in) - dating: it's chill to not date. don't feel behind - don't need to always fill time during summers and breaks ## technical - low level CS stuff not that important. syntax super easy. what's important is algorithmic thinking and experience - for math: not at all important to get super ahead. if you really like it, you can spend 1 month and catch up. most important: get a very solid base - math competitions are fun and only a bit useful ## the meta-advice most advice is about what to do. the real skill is knowing whose advice to take. my [[filter coefficient|disagreeing-productively]] evolved from "accept everything from smart people" to "weight advice by how well the person knows my specific situation." and the most useful advice i ever got wasn't advice at all — it was a question: "what do you want?" asked repeatedly until i had a real answer. --- *see also: [[the stocks metaphor|the-stocks-metaphor]], [[social wins|social-wins]], [[social strategy|social-strategy]]*