4 Lessons from University

I recently graduated with an engineering degree from the University of Waterloo. Among the many skipped classes, failed exams, and rejection emails were some of the best memories and important lessons that I’ll carry with my for the rest of my life.

What follows are things I learned along the way that I wish someone told me earlier.

You’ll get crushed, but you learn to deal with it

I got pretty good grades in the later years of high school which helped me earn a spot in a competitive engineering program. I had built an identity around academic success and thought it would persist during university … it did not persist.

I vividly remember meeting my classmates for the first time and realizing how next level everyone was in comparison to me.

I didn’t study but I have a photographic memory so I aced the quiz!

I won like 3 math competitions in high school!

I’ve been coding since I was 12 so this class should be easy!

What in the fuck did I get myself into…

If you didn’t guess by now, I failed… a lot. Failing exams, quizzes and assignments took a huge toll on my mental and often made me question if I truly belonged there and how I could bear another 4 years of this purgatory. I also decided to switch programs from Electrical Engineering to Management Engineering, which was a curveball to my family and caused me to to wait 8 months until I could join the next cohort.

Wasted money, wasted time and failure left and right. I have achieved exactly the opposite of what I was set out to achieve and have become uncertain, unconfident and ridden with self-doubt.

But here I am sitting on my front porch, with the iron ring on my right pinky that identifies engineering graduates. Things never got easier so how did I get here? How did I make it through this shit show?

I kept showing up and iterating

I treated every L as an opportunity to learn, get back up and try again.

Studied hard for a quiz and still failed? Ok, what part of my studying was suboptimal and how can I improve it?

Didn’t get a job offer after prepping as much as I could? Ok, what were my weak points during the interview and how can I account for it during my prep?

With persistence, adaptation and effort, I started to see an improvement not only in my academic life but in my quality of life in general.

Don’t let unfair comparisons rule your life

Comparing salary, internships and grades are one of the many conversations shared by competitive university students.

Although seemingly harmless on a surface level, the underlying reason of comparison is just as subtle as it is toxic.

To see if this person is better or worse than me

Having shared metrics of “better” or “worse” makes it easy to place judgements on yourself and others so that you can place them on the arbitrary hierarchy that only exists in your mind.

I used to share the same mentality until I learned that setting ideals based on the expectations of others is unfair to myself, unfair to others and not rewarding.

Sometimes I still find it difficult dealing with the urge to compare but I’ve learned ways to deal with it. Whenever I feel the urge to compare, I ask: would I want to trade all of my life for all of their life? This type of questioning avoids the selective comparison between the “highlight reels” of others vs the “behind the scenes” of my life.

Start before you’re ready

Wanting to be prepared is a behaviour that I’ve adapted throughout my whole life in order to avoid bad outcomes (e.g. bad grades, bad performance, etc) and seek good outcomes.

But when taken to an unreasonable extent, the concept of readiness has been dangerous, sneaky and can kept me paralyzed in inaction.

When we seek to be ready, what are we really looking for? We want a guarantee. We want to feel confident, prepared and capable of handling what comes.

However, feeling and being ready are two different things.

Being ready means that you’ve studied, you’ve understood, you’ve done the work.

Feeling ready refers to the internal and emotional state that judges whether you are ready or not.

The problem is that even though you’re objectively ready, as long as you feel that you’re not ready, you never will be.

For example, during second year I was interested in having a software engineering internship but felt that I wasn’t ready to apply because I haven’t been programming as long or intensely as my peers.

Instead of applying, I would read posts online and watch youtube videos on landing software internships.

Hidden under my thoughts of “not being ready” was the fear of inadequacy, the shame associated with not being up to speed on this topic in comparison to my peers, and the urge to overcompensate for my skill deficit by “putting in the work to be ready”.

If I had continued with this path, I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere. I realized that although my experience may not be enough to excel at the job, I have a good enough foundation that will allow me to figure things out. So, I began applying despite my feelings of unreadiness and got my first software engineering internship.

The idea of being ready is associated with the avoidance of pain. The idea that bad things don’t have to happen if they can be optimized and prepared fore. The idea that there is a way to avoid negative emotions like shame, guilt and embarassment.

What I learned was that life is a totality and that part of the experience of life is pain.

That applying to jobs that you feel unqualified for comes with frustration and uncertainty.

That becoming physically fit comes with fear of being judged and shame.

That becoming good at a video game comes with getting crushed repeatedly.

Ironically, the person who looks for readiness to avoid pain never winds up doing anything and never becomes truly ready. Whereas the person who acknowledges their feelings of unreadiness and tries anyways becomes truly ready. The key difference is that the person who becomes ready does not try to avoid suffering.

Nobody knows what they’re doing…really

As put together your classmates, coworkers, family and friends may seem, nobody knows what they’re doing, everyone just guesses based on what they’ve been presented.

The social media star who earns millions through YouTube videos

Your friend who landed a high paying job post-grad

Some kid many years younger than you who created an innovative product that made him millions

They are all guessing as they go.

Would these people be in the same place they are in now if they were born with a different set of circumstances? Probably not.

People just work with the cards they have in front of them and play them the best way they can.

Why does this matter?

Be kind to yourself and realize that there is no optimal way to live through the very intricate and unique circumstances that composes your life.

No guru, mentor, or self-help book will give you the “correct answer” because there is no correct answer.

Do what you think is best because only you have the best understanding of “best”.

tl;dr

• Showing up and trying your best over a long enough time horizon will drastically increase your chances of success
• Comparing yourself to others is an unfruitful and social game. Avoid it like the plague and focus on your own values and goals
• Being ready and feeling ready are different things. Act despite not feeling ready.
• Nobody knows what they’re doing, so do what you think is best because only you know what