Grad School Perspectives

An example: I follow experts who know stuff I don’t, digest their material (like in the screen grab) and sometimes ask my mentors or other trusted connections whether I’m grokking it or whether anything is off.

By doing this sort of thing (among others), I’ve expanded my business know-how over years. That’s helped me differentiate from others who do my sort of work, earn significantly more than peers and get the best opportunities. It also makes ageism irrelevant in my career, even though I work in the startup world, which is often ageist.

I mention this, because it’s important to recognize that there are free info and opportunities all around us and you don’t need special access, money for tuition, etc., to learn. You just have to spot value and opportunities where others can’t. And there’s plenty of useful material across many domains on LinkedIn if you curate your feed. You don’t need to learn the stuff I choose, of course.

Note: I’ve never worked in B2B, yet because I’ve been following various experts, I’ve learned enough to understand more and more of it. This isn’t stuff I could learn from textbooks or school, because these are business people who are actually working in going concerns, competing live. The value of such learning is much better than any MBA — what they’re figuring out now will go into textbooks in years to come. (Some people go to business school for networking, but given the work I’ve done in Plan B, my network is better than most MBAs, and I didn’t pay tuition.)

To me, if you can’t find valuable material on LinkedIn, it’s not because it doesn’t exist.

FWIW: I had zero business background, because I spent decades in news. I have only a journalism degree from a state U. When I switched careers nine years ago, I negotiated a seat at the exec table at an early stage startup. I knew that if I couldn’t learn business fast enough, there was no reason to keep me at the exec table as our business grew. And I had to figure out how to help grow it. If I didn’t, not only would that hurt my career, it would shortchange the team I was building.

Various people also complain about lacking mentors. Well, I have no trouble finding mentors, because when they see the efforts I’ve already made to learn, they’re willing to invest time. High-caliber people get plenty of requests; they tend to help those who help themselves.

International Schools That Participate in the Federal Student Loan Programs (this list is updated quarterly, so check with your intended school to be sure it currently participates)

They also developed a workflow manager, Luigi, which they open sourced. Luigi is a Python framework for data flow definition and execution. Luigi is used to crunch a lot of data. Most of the data is user-centric data, such as  billions of log messages that allows Spotify to provide music recommendations or select for example the next song heard on the radio. The data however is also used in decision-making, providing forecasting information and business analytics. According to the Jason Palmer from Spotify Labs, data is part of their culture.

via this

Update: In January 2015 I updated this advice post and published it on Vox. You’ll find much of the same advice below, but Vox has more detail.

I don’t need to tell you what you already hear from many quarters: get a well-rounded education and enjoy yourself. That is good advice. But here are the ten extra things I tell all undergraduate advisees interested in international public service:

Acquire skills that are hard to get outside school. Your first temptation will be to fill your schedule with courses on fascinating subjects. Do this, but don’t forget to also use university to tech up. For anyone interested in public policy or development, I suggest at two semesters of statistics and economics. Then pick a field of study in development (economics, politics, etc) and pick the hardest courses in each. Other technical skills may come in handy, depending on your interests: international law, political theory, tropical medicine, qualitative methods, finance & accounting, and so forth.

Learn how to write well. Take writing seriously. Consider a course in creative, non-fiction, journalism, or business writing. Read books on writing. You won’t regret it.

Focus on the teacher, not the topic. You will learn more from great teachers than great syllabi.

When in doubt, choose the path that keeps the most doors open. If you aren’t sure of your interests, stick to mainstream majors, ones with plenty of job and grad school options at the end, and get your core stats and math training (multivariate calculus, linear algebra, and multivariate regression).

Do the minimum language and management classes. Languages are hugely valuable, but better learned in immersion, during your summers and holidays. Maybe take an intro course, but only that. Business and management skills are critical, but classrooms are poor places to get skills other than finance and accounting.

Try careers on for size. Don’t wait until you finish law or medical school to discover you hate working in your specialty. Try out different careers in the summer–researcher, journalist, medical assistant, NGO worker, congressional aide, and so on.

Go to strange places. Use a summer or a school year to live abroad, ideally a place completely different from home, where you’ll come to know local people (and not just the expat community). A 10-week sojourn across Western Europe is a blast, but see if you can bunker down for longer in a less familiar locale. Here’s when it makes sense to learn languages.

Take some small classes with professors who can write recommendations. If you’re uninterested in grad school, skip to #9. But if a MA or PhD is an option, you will need at least three high quality recommendations. (See my recommendation letter advice here.)

If you don’t have to write a thesis, think twice. An independent research project can be the perfect capstone to your college years. Sadly, I often see theses that weren’t worth the students’  investment of time and energy. Some people’s time would be better spent acquiring technical skills (see point 1). I used to advise students against a senior thesis if they had the choice. After getting lots of disagreement on my blog, I’ve revised that view; a senior thesis can be a great investment if you are dedicated to a question of interest, want to learn how to research, want to strengthen a relationship with a professor, want practice for graduate school, or want to try out research and writing as a career option. (If you do plan to write a senior essay, here are my advising requirements.)

Blow your mind. At year’s end you should look back at your thoughts and opinions twelve months before and find them quaint. If not, you probably didn’t read or explore or work hard enough. (Come to think of it, this is not a bad rule for life.)

The logic underlying all the above advice: use your undergraduate degree to learn things that are hard to learn anywhere else. Statistics are not more important than languages. But the opportunity cost of skipping a statistics course is high because it’s hard to find alternatives to university classes. Remember you only get 32 courses at university. The opportunity cost of a language program is low because there are a dozen other times and places you can get that skill.

For other views, see the excellent comments on the original blog post of this advice. The New York Times recently had advice from nine senior professors in various disciplines.