I volunteered as a peer mentor for a few semesters at Purdue. I noticed the advice I gave to underclassmen had a common theme: "Ask yourself why you do every single thing you do."
The biggest difference between high school and college is that your level of freedom increases by at least an order of magnitude. Increases in your independence throughout high school were relatively small. Choosing classes, picking friend groups, learning to drive, etc. have all been well defined and anticipated. In college you receive an upgrade in freedom across so many aspects of life that it's actually impossible to wrap your head around for quite some time. This single counterintuitive point, that you don't understand the amount of freedom you have, is the motivation for just asking why.
The best way I know of to deal with newfound autonomy is to just ask yourself why you do everything. Everything you do has a reason, from waking up early for class to staying up late with friends. Some of these reasons may be bad, like pressure from your parents to get a good GPA, and some of these reasons may be good, like the desire to get to know other interesting people. Other things you do may not have a defined reason at all, these are simply actions you perform unconsciously because everyone else is doing them.
Many reasons you do things are complex and cascade down many levels to fundamental values that define you. Attending (or not attending) class is a good example because everyone has a different set of reasons for doing so. Here's an example:
- Attend classes to get a high GPA
- Get a high GPA to get into a top graduate school
- Get into a top graduate school to have props on a resume
- Have props on a resume to get job at Company X
- Get job at Company X to work on interesting things
- Work on interesting things to be happy (fundamental value)
Many times this reasoning chain will be flawed somewhere along the way, or there is a more efficient path to the end goal. Maybe you learn better from textbooks than classes. Maybe the top graduate school cares more about LSAT than GPA. Maybe attending the top graduate school isn't what Company X cares about. Maybe you wouldn't get to work on anything interesting as an entry level employee at Company X. Often you won't know if a reason is sound or not. In these cases a safe bet is to do the thing that will put you in close proximity to the smartest people.
The great part about not doing things for bad reasons is that you'll end up doing fewer things you dislike. You'll end up with more time to do things you really enjoy, and it's much easier to build new habits when the opportunity cost is low.
Thanks to Spencer Brown and Jack Hammons for reading drafts of this.