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How to take 150% advantage of your US uni experience. These are lessons I still teach myself. I wish I knew these things before I started.

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🚶🏾‍♀️First Things / General (new)

• Understand the importance of what you did and where you are. This will help you understand the value of what you did and where you are at, and will help you reach more fulfilment with everything that you do.
  • Understand the acceptance rate of the university - This can remind you of how special you are and how special every single person is
  • Understand the kind of mindset one has to go to the US - Embarking on a much less troden path. Independence, long-term thinking, strategic thinking, braveness.
  • America is the most powerful country in the world. You are going to one of the best universities in the most powerful country of the world. This makes you quite a powerful person, and you have this affiliation for a lifetime. People that created the largest companies and did the most important things are affiliated with these universities.
    • Understand the power wealth of the students of your university. This college draws the most important and brightest. Speak to everyone, connect - everyone is a massive opportunity to each other. This one of the reasons smart and important people send their kids to these universities.
    • Understand the power and impact and wealth of the alums of your university. This will help you realise what you are part of and what you can be.
• It is also important to understand what action, activities, hustles, committments are not important, which will be a byproduct of understanding what is important. This will help steer you to wiser use of your time. Time is one of your most valuable life assets as something that consistently diminishes. You do not have an unlimited time at college! Every semester is very expensive - every class you take per semester is about $9,000. Every class = ~$340!! Do you still feel like skipping class, office hours (tutorials) and class networking ?
• Generally, socialising is is one of the most important things in uni - the actual major you do is one of the least important.
  • People go from Engineering to Biology to Law School. People go from engineering to finance to tech (Me). People got from Chem Eng to Private Equity (Finance). People got from Maths or Philosophy to managing billions of dollars: https://www.mexc.com/en-GB/news/866551
  • talk to people to gain perspective. Everyone at your uni, esp. the top ones, are amongst the most successful in their field nationally and globally.
  • Every social event - from Frat parties to bumping into people on campus to societies to professional gatherings - is a networking event. You cannot know for your where you will meet the people that will help you get into Goldman Sachs or your next co-founder. Your co-founder likes to party as well. I met my Goldman connect whilst he was working a student job in the Reception! Finance was only discussed at 1.5 years of being good friends. I could not have made it in without him.

👨🏾‍💼 Corporate

Backstory/context: Freshman year, got offer from Tesla but chose Harvard Medical School Medical Device Engineering job that I cold emailed for. Pivoted to Business, got offer from BCG (#1/2 in the industry) but then pivoted mid-year to finance and landed a Private Equity role. Junior year landed Goldman Sachs Banking. After that, pivoted into Tech, founded and ran a startup whilst I interviewed for Product Management with Google, Meta, Chase & Revolut. Currently a Software Engineer. I still do finance things on the side and am still very much playing the corporate game.

Think bigger… score bigger

• You are more than your academic major - what else can you be? You’re at a uni with prowess in a mind-boggling number of industries.
• You’re paying the total Uni Fee (or the uni so paying you) for the ability of exploration & taking advantage of all on offer … not just to do Physics or History and join 1 finance club like you always planned.
  • The college admitted you with this in mind, but this isn’t what is taught to young people or is a common discussion!
  • Join the Balkan Society, Maybe you have never done any student government before - See what they are doing there, Go to an academic conference in Hawaii, which can be funded by your university
• One thing top schools school sin America can provide is a new dream for deeper and broader impact. A larger vision is priceless.

How do I figure out what job I wanna do???

• It depends on what you want out of life and the way you want to do it. Everyone wants the same kinda goal, a combination of money and power and prestige, and there are 1000 ways to do that. You can also create your own way. The majority of people at college walk a path that has already been created. This can be useful but can also hurt you. Also remember, you can use one path to get you closer to your goal then change path when it no longer serves you, or you find a better route to get to that goal.
  • Method: (and this is what I would do if I was a college freshman/sophomore again)
  1. List out all the jobs that you could do, so on the y-axis.
  2. Then on the x-axis write down the characteristics to evaluate these jobs - pay, ability to work from home, average culture, exit opportunities, salary progression, Type of impact etc. have a scoring system for them against each job.
  3. Rank the job and industries. Pick as many as you can handle, then get to work!
• Understand that there are industries and jobs you have no clue about, As you are only 2% into your professional journey, then research all the jobs in industries that you could do. Use [LinkedIn], Speak to uppercase man, Speak to alum on [LinkedIn], Go to info sessions, go to networking events. And update your ranking.
• LinkedIn is very important and very very useful. If you want to get somewhere professionally there are people that have taken the same path before that can guide you on how to achieve that thing better, more efficiently than they did.
  • Research profiles - where do you want to be in 5, 10 years? How can you get there? What firms and positions do you need to take up to get there? What pipeline programs did they do to get into companies? Use people as a playbook.
  • Use your uni email to reach out to them, so they’re more likely to respond. Might take you some smarts to figure their email out from LI name.
• Network vertically (with more senior people: alums in the role or Managers) but ALSO horizontally (people at your level, ‘grindmates’). Horizontal can be of immense, immense value - letting you know about secret programs or interview questions or having resources. At uni every person is a goldmine of information.
• Do as many pipeline programs as you can - these will fast-track you to final stage interviews at the most prestigious firms in the world. You will also meet the smartest, most motivated people in America. Check my LinkedIn for the programs I did - I did a clean sweep of Wall Street.
  • Don’t fail a once-in-a lifetime final interview by not prepping adequately because you have to prepare for a MIDTERM. A ‘C’ grade in Probability is temporary and mostly invisible, Blackstone is forever and visible. One could drop the class to take it the next semester or ask for a later midterm date. You can also change your major to an easier course, to be able to kill the professional game and be a millionaire later in life.
• Figure out quickly if the job is something you want to do long term. If not, pivot industry or role quickly. Opportunies for experience-less college students will expire.
• If you don’t like the role you should not quit but instead pivot to a different role at the company. The job market is so tough it is a good idea to maintain employment where you can.