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MattG comments on Open thread, Jan. 12 - Jan. 18, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion

6 Post author: Gondolinian 12 January 2015 12:39AM

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Comment author: RowanE 12 January 2015 02:53:34PM 6 points [-]

In the vein of asking personal questions of Less Wrong, I need career advice. Or advice on finding useful career advice.

I'm an undergraduate student, my course is "Mathematics & Theoretical Physics", BSc, but I'm already convinced I don't want to try to be a career scientist. Long-term, my career goals are to retire early (I've felt comfortable enough on what I live on as a student that the MrMoneyMustache approach seems eminently doable), with the actual terminal values involved being enjoyment and lack of stress, so becoming a quant also seems like a bad choice what with having to get a PhD first. Teaching just sounds horrible to me.

What this leaves me with is the much broader range of careers that are either mathematical or sciencey enough that I could use the degree for them, or the jobs and graduate programs that just ask for a degree and don't care what kind. I have too many choices, every particular one I look at seems okay but not great, I have no idea how to even begin narrowing them down or ordering them.

Comment author: [deleted] 12 January 2015 06:54:08PM 4 points [-]

Hey Rowan,

The way to figure this out is to work backwards. Find people who have the ideal day you want, with your strengths and skills, then work backwards to deconstruct their careers.

Use that to come up with a list of potential careers, then talk to people in that career (find them using LinkedIn) to answer a few questions:

  1. Is the demand for this career going up or down?
  2. What are the biggest surprises I should watch out for?
  3. What does a typical day look like? Would I enjoy it?
  4. What would be my biggest wins in college be in terms of skills, network, credibility , and projects that would allow me to quickly land a job when I get out?

I put up a video on this process here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6sXNR7kL-c&list=UUCi-drAVuy8g4N8TfODHgUQ

I'd also be happy to chat with you about any further questions you may have: http://selfmaderenegade.net/lets-chat/