I was recently asked to speak at a professional development event for teachers at my middle school. They posed three questions for me to answer:
- If I could go back to the start of my middle school and high school journey, what advice would I give myself?
- How has my school prepared me for my current and future education/career?
- Any insights of improvement? What do students need to be successful in the world?
I drafted some notes for my talk, so I figured I’d publish a slightly more polished version of them online as a resource for myself (and hopefully others) to look back on. I quite literally wrote everything in the span of a few hours late at night on a flight, so don’t expect this to be a TED-talk level insight. Instead, it’s just a mishmash of my spontaneous thoughts…
I’ve constructed these thoughts in a framework of three essential groups – discovery, engagement, and foresight. I believe that schools, especially K-12 schools that a vast majority of Americans participate in (unlike higher ed) have a primary purpose of developing civically engaged adults who benefit our society, and who help sustain our democracy. Their secondary purpose, in my view, is to prepare students for their future careers: both in finding them and in learning what’s necessary for them. Whether schools as they exist today have fulfilled both or either of these goals is very much up for debate. But I hope that these thoughts provide insight into what educators, administrators, and students should consider to achieve the aforementioned goals of education.
Discovery
It probably goes without saying that the school environment is one of the best places to learn. It feels unfortunate that this period only lasts, at most, a quarter of the average American’s lifespan. So care must be taken to maximize both the breadth and depth of what is gained during this critical and formative period.
Read and write a lot
When I was applying to colleges, I also applied to a number of institutions in the UK, including the University of Cambridge. Cambridge and its elite peer, Oxford, have an admissions process very different from that of US higher education institutions. Both universities place great emphasis on performance in an intense interview with one or more professors from a student’s desired program of study. One of the biggest components of my Cambridge interview was the independent reading I had done in my desired field (Human, Social, and Political Sciences). Unfortunately, I had not done very much and this was cited as the main reason I didn’t receive an offer from the University of Cambridge in my application feedback.
I think this experience generally reflects the much lighter emphasis that US secondary schools place on reading, especially independent reading, compared to secondary education in other Western countries. This is the case even though I believe gaining exposure to other people’s ideas – especially those that disagree with one’s own worldview – is a great thing, especially in today’s highly polarized environment. It expands one’s perspective and also helps one better express thoughts in writing. Additionally, some of my instructors at USC, especially in social sciences, have shared personal observations that students today are less well-read than students of years past, to their detriment.
This disappointing status quo is true even though reading and writing demands in college only increase compared to high school. It’s not abnormal for me to read a few hundred pages every week for one class, nor to write 20-30 page papers. I also regularly need to write scholarship application essays, cover letters for job applications, and reports for work and other obligations. How can we reasonably expect young people to complete this type of work at a high quality when their K-12 schools never encouraged or even allowed them to undertake the rigorous reading and writing that would prepare them for it?
That said, I’m very grateful that one of my teachers in high school was a bit of a longform journalism enthusiast, and that rubbed off on me. There are some excellent longform pieces out there, and I count longform articles among the most incisive and interesting pieces I’ve ever read. I’m still an avid longform consumer today.
Meet new people
This is kind of a cliché, but networking really is king. I’m writing this while I’m an industrial engineer at Disneyland Resort. I’ve been told that this is a fairly competitive role, especially since there are many strong industrial engineering programs at universities around Disneyland. What helped me land this role was that one of the student organizations I help lead at USC hosted an event with two people from my team who were also doing on-campus interviews for Disneyland industrial engineering jobs. I had the opportunity to speak with those two engineers during the event, and I landed an interview with them the next day. Especially in college, where opportunities to meet new students, professors, and professionals alike are simply abundant, it’s critical to try and make new connections (if not friends) at every turn. One of those might very well yield a career-changing opportunity.
Be innovative
When I was a freshman at USC, one of the challenges of being an out-of-state student that quickly became clear to me was how hard it was to get to Los Angeles International Airport from campus. Lyft or Uber could easily cost $100 one way with surge pricing, while public transit usually took over an hour. So I was excited to work on a project that launched a student-run shuttle bus service between USC’s campus and LAX airport, which ultimately transported several thousand students in one year at no end-user cost (it was funded by our undergraduate student government). This project achieved two objectives in one: it showcased our team’s innovative, fix-it attitude; and also solved a real life annoyance for me. So taking initiative and innovating to solve problems yields both short-term and long-term gains. Indeed, many job recruiters and interviewers asked me about this experience.
Find the “big 3”: passion, talent, curiosity
I believe these three attributes are what ultimately shape which major one should study in college and what career one should pursue. Interpretations of the balance among these three differ – parents would probably say “pursue your passion”, while a more pragmatic observer might advocate for following one’s talent. Regardless, I think most people in high school or college feel like they don’t know what they want to do in the future, perhaps because they haven’t really found any of these three properties. Knowing at least one of them would make things much easier when making important decisions like choosing a college or even applying for internships and full-time jobs.
Engagement
K-12 and college are a short time where one is around a pool of the same people of the same age doing the same things, for most of the day. This makes for unique and perhaps once-in-a-lifetime chances to engage with the people around us. Also, students generally have more free time than working professionals. Because of these conditions, I think it’s critical to engage with the world in school. (And, by the way, it’s absolutely possible to get a good GPA, get good standardized test scores, and be highly involved. These should not be, and are not, mutually exclusive factors.)
Be involved in extracurriculars and the community
Having close access to a ton of different involvement opportunities means it’s very easy to try new things out, even if they don’t sound that interesting. I have a great example of this experience: during high school, I decided to start running cross country and track. I’m not a particularly athletic person so I didn’t think I was going to like either of these sports. Ultimately, I ended up doing those sports until I graduated, and I still run every once in a while for fun. I also met many of my closest friends in high school through the sport. Speaking more broadly, being involved has been great for me personally and professionally: I was also very active in Model United Nations and Michigan Youth in Government in high school. I credit both of these activities, which involved a lot of public speaking, with helping me become a better speaker and critical thinker.
Be aware of what’s going on in the country and the world
A large and growing proportion of young people in particular now get their news from social media. This is bad, not least because of the rampant misinformation happening on social media. Being informed is central to actively participating in society – an informed vote can’t happen without information. For the last few years, I dedicate about 30 minutes each day to catch up on the news through a couple email newsletters I particularly like.
Gain cultural awareness (take a language!)
During middle school & high school, I studied German for five years. I also took a 2 week trip to Germany as part of a “cultural exchange”. Both of these experiences were extremely formative for me. Our world today is more globalized than it has ever been, so having experience interacting across cultures is crucial. This has only become more important to me since I moved to Los Angeles, which is obviously much more diverse than Michigan.
Foresight
We all wish we could predict the future, but the closest we can realistically get is having foresight. Obviously, it’s a good thing to never be blindsided by anything unexpected – especially important during school, which is a time of fast-paced transition with a lot of “tricks” to know.
Learn computing and statistics
I don’t think anyone would disagree when I say that computing is huge. Indeed, my university (USC) recently made a billion-dollar investment to make computing education accessible to and mandatory for all undergraduate students, regardless of their major. Unfortunately, I don’t feel that I got very much exposure to computing and statistics while in K-12; however, I have a strong interest in these things, so I did have the chance to learn a lot on my own. This is particularly important since making sense of large datasets is a nearly universal activity today, in both school and work; of course, computing and stats makes that task much easier.
External cognition
Today, there’s simply no way to just memorize one’s calendars and to-dos. There needs to be a place to store that information reliably. I rely on software to handle this task: Todoist, Jira, Google Calendar, and ClickUp are my go-tos. Offloading this thinking to an external “brain” is called “external cognition” in human ergonomics. Leveraging external cognition has made me so much more productive, and I wish everyone had the opportunity in school to learn how to take advantage of it.
Learn real world skills
I moved on my own across the country for my first year of college, so there were a lot of “adult” things I had to do:
- Making a budget
- Dealing with the DMV
- Applying for a visa
- Opening a credit card (and using it responsibly)
- Understanding a lease agreement
These are all tasks that most people encounter at least once during their adult lives, yet they aren’t taught. Everything here was essentially a trial-and-error, or “how to make a budget reddit” search.
Think about college earlier
The college application is now more complicated and more competitive than it has ever been. The best way to mitigate is to take advantage of time: start planning early! In my experience, it takes a lot of research and thought to find the right institution. This research and thought becomes increasingly hard to do as time pressure comes into play. A major point here is taking advanced and dual-enrollment courses in high school: most students at USC are required to take math through linear algebra. I completed all of this math in high school, through AP and dual-enrollment courses. A similar vein is studying a foreign language. This is required for three semesters for most USC students. I think getting math and a foreign language out of the way before college is one of the main reasons why I’m able to earn both my master’s and bachelor’s degrees within four years without excessive overloading.