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ChaosMote comments on Open thread, Dec. 15 - Dec. 21, 2014 - Less Wrong
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I was unsure where to post this question; let me know whether it merits its own thread. I also apologize if this post is a bit messy.
If I had to title this post, I might name it, "Optimizing College Activities for a Future Programmer".
I'm a college student at an American school. It's quite a lot of work -- more than I can do in the time given, and I have a study routine that's more efficient than a lot of people I know. I was handling it relatively well last year and still getting enough sleep, exercise, socializing, etc. -- basically all the things I would consider essential for keeping me sane.
I do not do drugs. I do not watch television or movies. I am vegetarian. My room is not decorated and I do not buy expensive items. My socializing thus far has consisted of talking with people over meals while walking around campus. I am not in a relationship. I spend most of my time studying and doing school assignments. I have a relatively good GPA and have worked hard to maintain it. But the work is getting harder and I'm thinking I'll need to start putting less work into my classes and accept a lower GPA, because I cannot compromise the essentials (meditation, sleep, etc.). It's been too stressful to do as much coursework as I've been doing and to skip the essentials.
I plan to pursue a career in software engineering / outside academia. I'm double-majoring in math and CS. I do not plan to get a master's degree or a PhD (at least, not any time soon). I understand that CS students' grades don't matter much, though I do think I can benefit from doing as well as I can in my classes. (But I'm also willing to work less in college to be happy.) I also have a great coding job that I've been neglecting because of my studies, but I don't want to neglect it any longer.
Some questions:
Should I let my grades drop a bit and instead work my coding job and ensure I'm doing the "life essentials" on a daily basis? I will be replacing some of my academic work with programming, which is in my estimation pretty valuable. I'm on a scholarship and it requires that I maintain at least a 2.0 GPA, but I'm quite confident my GPA isn't in danger of dropping that low.
Should I put more emphasis on socializing and forming a network? I don't use Facebook much, and my interests don't intersect with most of my peers' (see the partying / drinking / buying expensive food stuff above). I'd rather spend time with people who are doing interesting things and who I can relate more with (is this bad?), but I'm having trouble finding such people on my campus. How do other "rationalists" form social networks in these kinds of environments, or do they?.. I don't want to miss out on something essential (like developing social skills and / or a network) if it is actually essential. (To be fair, I am a bit awkward and often find I don't have anything to say to my peers, but I think this is again because my interests differ from others'... But maybe I'm wrong.)
How should one pursue the development of social skills? How much time should one put into it, vs. into coding, studying, etc.? Based on what I've read, being friendly and someone people can get along with and want to spend time with can work wonders in all sorts of circumstances. Relative to my peers, I've put less time into meeting and hanging out with people, and I think I'm less socially adept. I'd love to improve. Any suggestions?
On a related note, how can I find people with whom I'm compatible? I frequently run into people I don't want to spend time with, but rarely do I meet people whose presence electrifies me.
Any other general advice? e.g., I haven't read anything outside of class since the summer, and I'm thinking it would be good to read during the semester.
I have two pieces of advice for you. Please take them with a grain of salt - this is merely my opinion and I am by no means an expert in the matter. Note that I can't really recommend that you do things one way or another, but I thought I would bring up some points that could be salient.
1) When thinking about the coding job, don't put a lot of emphasis on the monetary component unless you seriously need the money. You are probably earning less than you would be in a full time job, and your time is really valuable at the moment. On the other hand, if you need the money immediately or are interested in the job primarily because of networking opportunities or career advancement, then it is a different matter.
2) Keeping up a good GPA is not equivalent to learning the material well. There are certainly corners you could cut which would reduce the amount of work you need to do without losing much of the educational benefit. As the saying goes, 20% of the effort gives 80% of the results. If you are pressed for time, you may need to accept that some of your work will have to be "good enough" and not your personal best. Having said that, be very careful here, cause this is also an easy way to undermine yourself. "This isn't really the important stuff" is a fully general excuse.
Thanks for the response.
Re: 1) I'm not as focused on the money as on the programming opportunities it might later lead to.
Re: 2) I agree with everything here. What do you mean in your last sentence?
I'm having trouble finding the original sequence post that mentions it, but a "fully general excuse" refers to an excuse that can be applied to anything, independently of the truth value of the thing. In this case, what I mean is that "this isn't really the important stuff" can sound reasonable even when applied to the stuff that actually is important (especially if you don't think about it too long). It follows that if you accept that as a valid excuse but don't keep an eye on your behavior, you may find yourself labeling whatever you don't want to do at the moment as "not really important" - which leads to important work not getting done.
The post is "Knowing About Biases Can Hurt People". See also the wiki page on fully general counterarguments.
Thank you! That is exactly what I was looking for.
My advice would be to get just a minor in Math so you can get some easy electives in. if you're considering a career change out of computer science as a possibility and just creating options then there are very few grad schools that would accept a math major but not a math minor. In the job market, a CS plus math minor is probably not going to be a big difference from a double major. This may not be the case for all possibilities but it should hold for most of them. Certainly most employers are going to compliment you then shrug for programming jobs.