Starting University Advice Repository

Bryan-san

I know quite a few (12+) rationalists and CFAR graduates who are entering University soon or have just recently started University.

There was a lot of advice I wish I had been given or heard before I entered University and I think having a good repository of rationalist-contributed knowledge/advice/suggestions/information/links/DireWarnings could be very helpful to people in that situation.

1. What advice do students starting University need to hear?

2. What advice did your past self need to hear or what advice would have benefited you at that point in time?

3. Many people fail to ask the right questions. What questions do students need to ask themselves and other people?

Any links or guides on any related topics would be helpful. I will be posting some of my own ideas and links in the comments.

Possibly Relevant Repositories

Life Advice Repository

Boring Advice Repository

Grad Student Advice Repository

Repository Repository

I know quite a few (12+) rationalists and CFAR graduates who are entering University soon or have just recently started University.

1. What advice do students starting University need to hear?

2. What advice did your past self need to hear or what advice would have benefited you at that point in time?

3. Many people fail to ask the right questions. What questions do students need to ask themselves and other people?

Any links or guides on any related topics would be helpful. I will be posting some of my own ideas and links in the comments.

Possibly Relevant Repositories

Life Advice Repository

Boring Advice Repository

Grad Student Advice Repository

Repository Repository

The first principal component of scores on various tests is, of course, a mathematical artifact. But it's not the real thing, it's just an estimate, a finger pointing at the real thing.

I agree that people can be both stupid and smart in very different ways, but at a certain -- and useful! -- level of aggregation, there are generally smart people and generally stupid people. There is a lot of variation around that axis, but I think the axis exists. I'm not arguing that everything should be projected into that one-dimensional space and reduced to a scalar.

Here is how this game works. We have a bunch of observed variables X, and a smaller set of hidden variables Z.

We assume a particular model for the joint distribution p(X,Z). We then think about various facts about this distribution (for example eigenvalues of the covariance matrix). We then try to conclude a causal factor from these facts. This is where the error is. You can't conclude causality that way.

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