Perhaps one of the biggest changes for me coming out of college into post-grad life was how my perception of time changed and how that subsequently affected my decision making.
In college, I worked on very short, dynamic time scales: what class am I taking next semester, what internship am I trying to get, which club will I join this year, etc. I optimized for short-term gains and lacked any forcing function to have to think strategically or with long-term vision. And that’s not necessarily bad - it’s good to have a time, especially earlier in life, to explore different options. I successfully punted off many path-dependent questions like “Should I do a PhD” and “Do I care more about working on AI or climate” and in hindsight, there were many benefits to not committing too early.
It was only during my senior year, when I had to start making some real decisions, that I started to think harder about what I actually wanted to do. Being forced to have some level of commitment to something e.g. a first job, forced me to think deeply about what I cared about. I didn't necessarily get it right the first time. But the exercise of having to figure that out and then act on it, is a much more substantive process than anything I did in college.
So when I came out of college, the blinders came off and suddenly I realized I had been thinking in terms of months and semesters, when in reality, one’s career is a 40-year long trajectory. I realized how much of what I was doing and striving for, was to accumulate burnished credentials that I thought would open doors for me (and preserve maximal optionality). In other words, I spent a lot of time doing things that I thought others would care about and very little time thinking about what I actually wanted to accomplish.
In general, this is one reason why I'm skeptical of advaneced degrees e.g. med school, law school, PhD. I spent high school and college in an environment where all the incentives and consequently, people around me, were not focused on actually doing anything of substance, but on producing the appearance of competence, generating proof-of-work and signalling to other actors their values.1 I can only imagine how one's approach to life is changed by spending the entirety of your 20's, or perhaps even an entire career, focused solely on convincing other people you are producing valuable work.
So while there is much I miss about college2, this is actually probably the primary reason why I would not say I wish I was back in college3. In college, I had the freedom to preserve optionality, exploring multiple avenues without having to commit to any (doing academic research, working in tech/startups, etc). The downside is that I never committed to anything, never truly invested in doing something I cared about.
When I left that environment with its misaligned incentives and found myself out in the open world, I realized I could start investing in what I actually cared about. Now, my decision cycles are much slower (on the order of a year or so). But each decision is much more thought out and aligned with what I actually want to do. I spent almost a year exploring what my second job would be and what I wanted to do and I'm encouraged to say that 6 months in, it has been a great experience.
Longer-term planning and commmitment also allowed me to work towards building things I believe have enduring value, rather than necessarily doing work that would be societally approved of as prestigious. For instance, I recently started RVA YIMBY, a housing advocacy group in my hometown of Richmond, Virginia. This kind of organization building wouldn't be possible if I was only thinking about what I would do for 6 months and then move on or if I was only thinking about prestige. Similarly, during COVID+post-grad, I also took a leap of faith and committed myself to working with the youth at my home church for 3 years.
None of these things are what college Charles would have ever imagined doing. But once I removed the need to preserve optionality and stopped caring about what other people thought, and instead focused on what I actually cared about and then committed myself to them, I found paths that were far more diverse and unexpected than the conventional ones. Not much of what I choose to do now is glamorous: federal government, local politics and advocacy, church, etc. But many of the path-dependent questions I wrestled with in college e.g. “should I sell out first and then do something worthwhile after”4 simply faded into irrelevance because, honestly, why would you do something just because it might impress others? Not only am I much more content with what I do now, I also genuinely believe that I’ve found paths that are actually, substantively, impactful as opposed to those that merely present the glamor of being cool.
My advice to younger friends would be to start asking early on: "what do I care about", "how do I want to make a difference". Yes, there may be times and seasons when you have to do the proof-of-work (I'm certainly not advocating here for anyone not to go to college). But I think our culture is overly-indexed on credentialling5 and it will only benefit you to think about these things earlier and, if you have the courage, to make decisions and commitments based off of them!
The preservation of optionality is its own fetter and commitment can bring its own freedom and expansion of possibilities. The act of committing to something is one of the truest expressions of care and there is an inexpressible joy in being able to actively express that care daily.6
Much ink has already been spilled on this exact issue vis-a-vis college applications
Maybe one day I will write that essay on the incredibly unique social construct of the modern university experience: how we rip youths away from their family to put them in semi-socioeconomically sorted fraternities, the infrastructural planning behind them (why can’t we normalize having mixed-use, dense, walkable housing close to amenities in any other setting y’all), and how the fact that people are still trying to recreate that socio-physical environment e.g. Neighborhood SF, Fractal NYC, speaks to the “bowling alone” death of community that characterizes our society today
And another essay still on why, in some ways, regret can be dangerous in various dosages and is a ultimately a choice that I semi-actively choose not to have
e.g. should I work in big tech first to keep that door open, then do something else? should I do a PhD because its useful for signalling and allows me to continue exploring (but also requires me to commit to one topic)?
FWIW, I think a lot of the tech non-traditional college pathways like Thiel Fellows are basically their own form of credentialling. Again, another possible essay topic on the pervasive, almost cult-like belief in certain parts of America that startups are the best and only way to have an impact.
And of course, shout out to the many friends who are far wiser than I, realized much of this already, and have been an inspiration to me! 💛