The 10 things I wished someone had told me entering college (part 2)

#6) Make friends. Singaporeans have an extremely bad tendency of clumping together... really if you wanted to hang out with other Singaporeans, why fly 10,000 miles away from home. I stuck with 3 of my American room-mates for all 4 years, and I am grateful for the very close friendships that I have with many of my American friends (many of whom I am still in touch with). .. but there's no better way to give you an insight to the US as well as lend a different perspective to the issues we are grappling with in Sg

#7) Write a dissertation and get yourself  involved in research. The crux of a university is the creation of knowledge, not the regurgitation of knowledge... so I don't think you really get a quintessential part of university without yourself engaging in the creation of knowledge by writing a dissertation itself.

Writing a dissertation helps you not just to crystallize your knowledge, but in helping you develop your toolset to solve the problem that you have chosen. You will also learn how to choose the right problem which is not a trivial task.

To write a dissertation it is important that you get involved in research. For those in the hard sciences and engineering, it's important that you join a lab group early on (even in your first year, if not your first summer). If there aren't paid RA positions, offer to work for free. For the social sciences, it is important to identify faculty that you can/ want to work with. Start with the things that you are really passionate about and take the initiative to approach them.  

#8) Find and develop mentors and learn as much as you can from them. 
You will be surprised by how few people actually make the effort to attend office hours. As much as possible, it is important to find mentors that you can learn from. They can be your seniors, graduate students or professors... and make it a point to learn as much you can from them... you don't know how much you might need their knowledge and assistance in the future.

I got into graduate school because of David Bradford, a public economics expert who came up with the X-tax ( a flat corporate and personal tax). I worked with him on global climate change and never learnt anything from him about public finance and the X-tax. It was only when I got to MTI that I regretted not having learnt anything from him having asked to look at suggestions to reform corporate taxation by my bosses because he had passed on by then. I cried while working through the stuff, all the while wishing that he was still around.

#9) Take more classes than you need....  Don't limit yourself by the classes that you have to take or are required to take. I frequently sat in for up to 7-8 classes per semester as an undergraduate (where the usual load is 4-5)... In most cases I would be enrolled (since Princeton didn't have a cap on maximum number of classes) ... and I did so even though it didn't help me graduate earlier or with more degrees. you never know what you might learn or pick up.

#10) The best things in life are for free.  I wrote about working for free... but is not just that. It's about working for the things in our life that we are truly and deeply passionate about. This is one of few times in life where you have the space and time to give yourself to your dreams. Write down your dreams, tell people about them, write about them...