Be exceptional

Hey there

Here at After Class, I reveal to you the things your profs won't tell you.

(they certainly didn't tell me about those)

Our western world is at the same time competitive and values uniqueness.

(a vertical individualistic society is the proper academic term)

Such a world rewards the Exceptional.

What does it mean to be exceptional?

More importantly -- how do you become exceptional?

In 2022, the U.S. Census Bureau found out that 53% of 18-24 year olds had at least a college education.

As we see, college won't make you stand out.

Neither will your GPA.

When you're at the top of your class, you're still one among thousands of valedictorians.

(there are approximately 5300 colleges in the U.S. That's a lot of valedictorians each year)

So, playing the game as you're told, competing where you're told to compete, even excelling when they want you to excel is bogus.

It eats up your energy for little reward.

If you're anything like me, you want to spend your energy on the real high rewards stuff.

Now, don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying you shouldn’t complete your college degree or that you shouldn’t make a decent effort, while you’re at it.

What I’m saying is that your college degree is the bare minimum.

Your foundations.

You have to build on top of that in order to stand out.

Like if you build a house. You don’t stop at the foundations.

(unless you want to live in a hole in the ground)

There are two ways forward.

They are not mutually exclusive. In fact, you should do both.

They are Specialization and Diversification.

Specialization is when you take a subset of your field and focus on it more than what is typically offered.

Most professional associations offer continuing education courses. The content is usually much more relevant to the current industry and job market than your college classes.

Very few of your peers are looking into those.

Or you could work on a relevant project on your own. That would give you a bunch of experience that your friends don’t have.

Diversification is when you venture outside of your field to gain expertise that has nothing to do with it.

For example, if you’re in med school, why not take a class in accounting?

There are myriads of possibilities.

The result will be your base college education, plus a bunch of different courses, internships, projects.

It will truly be custom, reflecting your interests rather than a one-size-fits-all syllabus.

As we’ve seen earlier, it’s quite hard to stand out when you’re competing with everybody else.

Now you’re not in the same game anymore.

Nobody’s trying to out-you you.

Winning becomes possible.

See you next time,

After Class