Your kid is going away to college for the first time (Yana is going to Franklin and Marshall, by the way; boo-hoo but of course we are proud of her). What advice do you offer her (or is it me?), keeping in mind that all strictures must embody economic reasoning in some form or another?
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Consider opportunity cost very seriously when entering into exclusively monogamous relationships. And in calculating such costs, take very seriously the Black Swan genre of arguments.
Start by switching to the state university available to her (Penn State?). Unless you make it into a top 10 – 20 university, there’s no reason to not choose the quality state university available to you. For example, I had a friend who attended Denison University in Granville, OH. I attended Ohio State. Economically, we are on the same level now, but his college debt was far greater than mine. The long term economic advantage is to me. Additionally, many Denison students were east coast kids who couldn’t get into an Ivy league school. Long term, they probably would have been just as well-off attending Rutgers, a SUNY school, etc.
The value of knowing facts is less than the value of knowing how to reason about facts. The value of knowing how to reason about, relate to, and “know” people – including yourself – is higher than anything else.
My first month in college, I met a senior who told me that there were three facets of college life, and you can only have two at a time: stellar grades, lots of sleep, or great social life. (econspeak: opportunity costs, anyone?) The sooner you find a balance to your life, the better. So here are some rules that worked for me.
1) Have a basic understanding of econ. Esp micro.
Treat your profs as fellow human beings rather than Gods who hold your academic destinies in their hands.
2) Eat healthy. You don’t get fat from beer and pizza once in awhile, but wolfing down hamburgers at lunch and loads of pasta every night for dinner will eventually get to you.
3) Check out interesting classes. Audit them, just go and sit in on them if you’re unsure, whatever.
4) The secret to good grades is preparation. “Winging it” saved me countless times in HS but very infrequently in college.
5) Expose yourself to a lot of randomness. Especially if you’re not sure of what you want to do in life. Ask me how I know this
6) Develop good habits. Students who pull frequent all-nighters during college carry over their bad habits to their jobs after college. Maintain a good balance to your life.
7) Prioritize.
9) You can learn (cheaply) just by going to the library. The high premium you pay for a college experience is for the vast resources each college has to offer, important connections in specific fields, friends, a degree that will open doors, etc. The bill may read something like: Tuition, Rooming, Insurance blah blah blah, but the actual list is the one given above. This is precisely what you need to take advantage of.
10) Ask. Upperclassmen about which classes to take or which profs to have. Seniors about their job search or how to make the most of college. Profs about their lives. Alumni about how they made decisions to get to where they are. Friends about what they are doing next summer or what they plan to be.
Just make sure you never stop asking. Ask your father about it. After all, he posted one simple question and got blitzed by a flurry of replies.
more sex is safer sex.
- Calculate the cost of sleeping through a class by dividing the number of hours of lecture a year with your tuition. The number is sure to get the most spoiled children out of bed. Ignore sunken costs.
- Start smoking if like most schools smoking isn’t allowed indoors and impromptu groups accumulate between classes. The networking opportunities are huge, and your lungs can take 4 years of smoking.
Trust your own instincts, and don’t be a passive participant in your own life. Don’t let a professor recruit you to an underrepresented major you’re not sure about, don’t let a controlling friend or significant other make you feel guilty for spending time with other people, and don’t let an RA chastise you if you choose to wear pajama bottoms to the ATM in the student union. These are not the people who will live with your decisions.
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