20 things every 20-year-old should know.
- Interests > classes.
- Never be too busy that you can’t blow off responsibilities & spend an evening exploring a new interest.
- Pick classes based on the professor, not the material. Interesting content doesn’t make up for a bad professor.
- Be forgiving — of others, but especially of yourself.
- Don’t be afraid to change your major.
- Go to class, do new shit. These are in no way mutually exclusive.
- To paraphrase Sam Altman —the days are long, but the semesters are short. The years are even shorter.
- Take the time to get to know the good administrators in your major/department. They will do you a solid.
- Try to meet up with at least one old friend each week. If the friendship isn’t worth the time or the price of a coffee, it isn’t worth your time.
- Study abroad if your university allows it, but don’t be upset if it isn’t the experience of a lifetime that brochures sell it as.
- The internet is the font of all human knowledge, but you only get to be an undergrad once (generally speaking). Plan your electives early — I recommend literature and astronomy.
- Your first job out of college don’t have to be your dream job — it just has to take you towards the mountain:
Something that worked for me was imagining that where I wanted to be — an author, primarily of fiction, making good books, making good comics and supporting myself through my words — was a mountain. A distant mountain. My goal.
And I knew that as long as I kept walking towards the mountain I would be all right. And when I truly was not sure what to do, I could stop, and think about whether it was taking me towards or away from the mountain. I said no to editorial jobs on magazines, proper jobs that would have paid proper money because I knew that, attractive though they were, for me they would have been walking away from the mountain.
—Neil Gaiman, Keynote Address at The University of the Arts.
13. Speaking of Neil Gaiman: make good art.
14. Being kinder is infinitely more important than being right. Be the first to apologize.
15. Don’t let dumb arguments ruin good friendships.
16. Everyone is making it up as they go along.
17. Don’t ghost people.
18. Talk to professors outside of class— you have an all-access pass to these professors for x years, and then it expires.
19. Get enough sleep, but not too much.
20. Trust your gut, set goals, and don’t forget to love.
Tommy Collison graduated from NYU with a double B.A. in Journalism and Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies. He currently works for The Tor Project, a job that takes him toward the mountain.
Thanks to Freia Lobo for reading a draft of this.
