This is a repository for major, life-altering mistakes that you or others have made. Detailed accounts of specific mistakes are welcome, and so are mentions of general classes of mistakes that people often make. If similar repositories already exist (inside or outside of LW), links are greatly appreciated.
The purpose of this repository is to collect information about serious misjudgements and mistakes in order to help people avoid similar mistakes. (I am posting this repository because I'm trying to conduct a premortem on my life and figure out what catastrophic risks may screw me over in the near or far future.)
Taking too many high-level math classes in my first year of college (including a really dense graduate abstract algebra course)
Not getting therapy while in college (rectified during grad school)
Not applying for internships in college (also rectified during grad school)
Turning down a promising summer research project right before my PhD. I thought that summer was a bit overloaded and I was going to do research during the PhD anyway, but it took 1.5 years of classes and qualifying exams before really getting started with research, so in retrospect I should have dropped other things from that summer instead.
Choosing a (somewhat) wrong field for grad school - I went into stats, but the main part of stats that interests me is machine learning, so I should have probably gone into CS.
This is a repository for major, life-altering mistakes that you or others have made. Detailed accounts of specific mistakes are welcome, and so are mentions of general classes of mistakes that people often make. If similar repositories already exist (inside or outside of LW), links are greatly appreciated.
The purpose of this repository is to collect information about serious misjudgements and mistakes in order to help people avoid similar mistakes. (I am posting this repository because I'm trying to conduct a premortem on my life and figure out what catastrophic risks may screw me over in the near or far future.)