I have a BA and MA in English from a top US university, and more than half my lifetime later I'd recommend against it unless you are really sure you want to teach it. As an undergrad I thought I wanted to teach English, but I disliked the graduate studies in the field and I didn't much like teaching at the junior college level when I tried it. Being able to write well has been an enormous help in my alternate career, but you can get that in any course of study that forces you to write frequently under direct criticism. If I had it to do over again I'd do some combination of HPS and CS with a smattering of economics; right up your alley. UBC has a good CS department for sure.

Thank you!

The reactions I get from people when I tell them I'm in nursing tend to be either very negative or very positive. The negative ones, most often from my parents' friends who knew me growing up, are "you're a smart girl, why would you want to do that?", at which point my usual defensive retort is, "So? Do you really want a dumb nurse looking after you?"

But an awful lot of people, probably more than 50%, start gushing about how much they respect me for it. As far as I can tell, being in a fancy hard degree like biomed will get you respect for brains, but studying nursing gets you points for character. People know that it's a hard job, not hard in the sense of "only a a few really bright or talented people can do it", but tough physically and emotionally. At work, I tell old ladies who come to aquafit classes that I'm in nursing, and they automatically think I'm a good person...

As far as it goes, you're absolutely right. I think that's one of the good lessons that my dad taught me, with his self-help books...it matters more (in terms of happiness, and of being good at what you do) that you like what you do all day, as opposed to enjoying the reputation of what you are.

The problem is, I think I would enjoy the day-to-day work of a doctor more than that of a nurse-there's more thinking involved, more theory, and that's always been the part I liked. I would almost certainly enjoy the schooling more than nursing school, too–I can't pretend I'm not bored and underchallenged in the academic aspects of nursing. And my mother is almost certainly right that I would like many aspects of academia–the thinking and researching and studying, if not the competitive atmosphere. I used to read physics and biology books for fun, something I can never claim to have done for nursing textbooks.

Side note:

I am passionate about psychiatry and plan to be an awesome psychiatrist. I am not quite as passionate about organic medicine with its heart attacks and kidney infections, and although I work hard at it and am pretty good, some of my classmates who get up every morning super excited because they've dreamed of treating kidney infections their whole lives are better.

I was pretty meh about my psychiatry placement this fall. The theory is pretty fascinating, and I had some surreal conversations with patients, but in general the nurses don't have a lot to do with theory-basically we just gave out meds, wrote notes in the chart, and then had lots of down time. I loved med-surg partly because of the lack of downtime, which didn't give me a chance to get bored.

Before I get bogged down in reading all the comments, I just want to say: nursing is one of the most admirable and versatile professions in existence. There are very few people I'd rather have available in any generic critical situation than an experienced and competent nurse. Good on you.

Another potential negative is a reduced capacity for strategic self-deception.

When you say stuff like:

"As an autodidact who now consumes whole fields of knowledge in mere weeks, I've developed efficient habits that allow me to research topics quickly."

http://lesswrong.com/lw/5me/scholarship_how_to_do_it_efficiently/

You sound like Tim Ferriss and you make me want to ignore you in the same way I ignore him.

It sounds like you place high importance on public image. In particular, on maintaining a public image that is self effacing or humble. I wonder if, over all, it is more effective for luke to convey confidence and be up front about his achievements and capabilities and so gain influence with a wide range of people or if it is best to optimize his image for that group of people who place high importance on humble decorum.

I don't want to do this because you seem like a good person with a genuine ability to help others. Don't lose that.

Tim Ferris is a good person (as far as people go) and he has been able to positively influence far more people by mastering self promotion than he ever would have been if he restrained himself. Is this about "being a good person and helping others" or keeping your approval? The two seem to be conflated here.

Fortunately for you when luke says "try to be a Rationality Tim Ferris" he does not mean anything at all along the lines of "talk like Tim Ferris". He is talking about being as productive, efficient and resourceful as Tim Ferris. He's talking about Tim's strong capability for instrumental rationality not his even stronger capability for self promotion.

(Incidentally I don't think Tim would make the kind of boast that Luke made there, simply because it is an awkward and poorly implemented boast. Tim boasts by giving a specific example of the awesome thing he has done rather than just making abstract assertions. At least give Tim the credit of knowing how to implement arrogance and boasting somewhat effectively!)

I like the second option better, too.

I'm certainly going to try to be a Rationality Tim Ferris, but I have a ways to go.

Eliezer is still hampered by the cognitive exhaustion problem that he described way back in 2000. He's tried dozens of things and still tries new diets, sleeping patterns, etc. but we haven't kicked it yet. That said, he's pretty damn productive each day before cognitive exhaustion sets in.

What are the warmest gloves known to humanity? I have poor circulation in my hands and none of the store gloves ever keep my hands warm outside.

I think that the biggest error I see in general among self-described rationalists is the tendency to undervalue experience.

There are a couple of things you could mean by this. Can you give an example?

I've been lurking here on and off since the beginnings at OB, IIRC, though more off than on. Expressed in the language of the recent survey: I'm an 43-year-old married white male with an advanced humanities degree working in the technical side of for-profit IT in the rural USA. I was raised in a non-theist environment and was interested in rationality tools from an early age. I had a spontaneous non-theistic mystical experience when I was 17 that led me to investigate (but ultimately reject) a variety of non-materialist claims. This led to a life-long interest in the workings of the brain, intuition, rationality, bias, and so on.

I enjoy LW primarily because of the interest in conscious self-improvement and brain hacking. I think that the biggest error I see in general among self-described rationalists is the tendency to undervalue experience. My thinking is probably informed most strongly by individual athletics, many of the popular writers in the rationalist tradition, and wide variety of literature. These days, I'm nursing obsessions with Python programming, remote backcountry cycling, and the writing of Rebecca Goldstein.