Reflections from a Recent Graduate As a teenager, I was always rich with unrequited advice.

Every older person around me seemed compelled to indulge in paternal instinct and impart pearls of wisdom. I didnt like that and so will be careful not to do the same in this article, especially since I graduated from Loyola only three years ago. Instead, Id like to share a few observations Ive made over the past five years and how I came to believe in them. My purpose is not to give you any advice but simply share how I interpreted a few situations I came across to encourage you to develop your own rules of thumb. After all, we have perfect vision in hindsight: Its okay to not know. It might even be better than thinking you do.

When I first came across the term liberal arts as a sixteen year old, it sounded decidedly non-professional. I didnt think it would help me much as I tried to make what seemed like one of the most crucial decisions about my education and career Arts, Science or Commerce. In Antiquity (think ancient Greece) the liberal arts were those subjects or skills that were considered essential for a free citizen to know in order to take part in public life. The goal was not to achieve expertise in a particular subject or discipline but to craft a virtuous, knowledgeable, and articulate person to be able to think rather than know. The Trivium or core liberal arts were simply grammar, logic, and rhetoric I closed the Wikipedia page. I picked Commerce. I had two reasons. While I enjoyed the sciences, and developed an early interest in technology, the daily classwork seemed tedious and didnt speak to my most recognized skills. The second was something like this: in my family of four, there were already three doctors. Medicine was one of my most seductive intellectual interests and had I picked the Sciences, Id really be picking a career in medicine. But if I wanted to use my education to improve the experience of life for as many individuals as I could, why should I limit my capacity to only those who are unwell in precisely particular ways, one patient at a time? It was nave but it seemed logical. Thus, Commerce was the default, value neutral option. I wish I had considered the Arts. But anyway Commerce afforded me time to continue pursuing extracurriculars (which were my favorite part of school anyway) while also keeping up decent grades. So while my friends and I grew existential towards the end of the ninth standard trying to do a 20 year forecast on our lives, I hoped that as long as I worked hard on things I liked, I wouldnt have to regret choices a sixteen year old had to make based on very little information and self-awareness. I didnt have to. In fact, by the time I had to leave for college, I had picked a liberal arts education for myself and believed whole-heartedly in a system I had previously rejected.

Grow your bubble

By the time I had to think about what I wanted to do for college, I realized I only knew enough about myself and the many possible subjects I could study to have merely one preference I wanted the best education I could get. Thinking geographically, I explored many options in India, Singapore, the UK, and the United States. Thinking strategically, I knew that Id fare better in an admissions system that relied on qualitative data rather than on one opaque national exam. I took the SAT, wrote a dozen application essays, garnered recommendations from teachers whod known me for years, mailed a bag of application packets to America, and prayed to get in. When rejections came in from colleges that I thought were safe bets, I felt very small. I realized that even though I had presided over multiple clubs, edited this magazine, organized and won at national level events, regularly spoke to a thousand people from on stage, and served as President: I lived in a very, very small world, almost unknown to the outside. Ego isnt a good measure of ambition or preparation. But the things that you know are. What worked for me in the end was that I really wanted to go to this one university. And with that desire, I befriended the Internet. I had spent hours everyday learning about application processes and what makes a good application, listened to podcasts from admissions officers, learnt about programs within universities, what the SAT is, how to do well on it and where I could find free practice tests. I had a lot of luck but in the end, I only got into the universities I had worked the hardest for and already knew a lot about. The process isnt one way either such research also gives you a realistic picture of where you stand in preparation for your ambitions and how unique you are, as is everybody else. I learnt to prioritize validated information over inter-personal emotions. Connecting with people and information beyond my immediate bubble served me better than simply believing I go to a great school and that, along with a little help from those around me, was all I needed. The Internet is my friend. And my greatest teacher.

Everyone might encourage us to work hard or follow your dreams when thinking about higher education. Few remind us that what makes our generation unique in the history of the world is that knowledge has been democratized the sum of human knowing is out there for you to access at home for free. So the school or college you go to has little relevance in what you can learn and are capable of doing. For example, you can: Learn any language you want to speak (www.busuu.com) Try to code and build something whether or not you take Computer Science in school (www.codeacademy.com) Watch fascinating people present the newest ideas and their applications in any field (www.ted.com)

Take a Yale University class on Game Theory and many others (oyc.yale.edu) or learn what Engineering classes actually feel like - at MIT (ocw.mit.edu) Immediately look up or browse even the most esoteric information (www.wikipedia.com) Read almost any publication in the world be it world news on Al Jazeera, fiction from the New Yorker Magazine, reviews from TechCrunch, or feature reporting from Tehelka just add them to your daily feed. (www.feedly.com)

People are quite accurate when they say most learning happens outside the classroom but they dont just mean extracurricular activities within school. I spend most of my waking hours connected to the Internet. Its where all my work and learning takes place. Sure, it can be hard to stay off Facebook or cute pictures of puppies at first but were old enough to practice control and even educate ourselves. Even if you take nothing from this article at least explore each of these websites if you dont already. Habits of the mind: Value questions over answers When I walked through the gates of my University for the first time, I was predictably ecstatic. I was on the other side of the world joining a community of the best scholars and a society of friends that came from 118 countries. I felt like I belonged. The next three months were the hardest Ive ever had. My classmates had more knowledge, experience, and talent than I did. Having to select 4 out of 3000 courses each semester and one out of 78 possible majors in subjects I had never even come across, paralyzed me. But starting with a little intuition and experimentation I gained more self-awareness. Asking the right questions, tracing an idea and its arguments closely, I learnt how to read for the first time. Keep asking the right questions, and one learns how to think how to ensure that your modest paper adds to our body of knowledge instead of imperfectly reproducing it. Of all the skills and knowledge to be gained in a classroom, I find that critical thinking and effective writing are the most important. You can learn almost everything else by yourself but these two are habits of the mind itself. I discovered a love for political philosophy and eventually declared myself as a Philosophy, Politics & Economics major. Well-considered thinking also leads to self-reflection and makes you challenge every personal belief you hold about your talents, friends and family, culture and identity, what you learn from relationships, the point of doing anything, and even the purpose of your existence. Its easy to get existential in college. But clear, logical thought processes and independent reading guided me through them. And once I arrived at conclusions, I didnt just believe these opinions like I had for 18 years. I now

knew them to be true (at least for myself). This creates a path of independence and discovery like no other. Surround yourself with the most interesting and passionate people I applied to college thinking I wanted to be a business major and work in finance. By the middle of my second year, I wanted to do something else but didnt know what. I took a years leave from college. I had managed to write a short research paper while interning at the Center for Policy Research in Delhi and doing surveys in rural Bihar so I tried and got University funds to present it in Spain and travelled (which is also a great habit not only for exotic destinations or family vacations: I had a tiny budget). I moved to Mumbai and worked at a firm called Dalberg that works as a consulting firm for socioeconomic development. In that time, I was able to join a team to build strategies to identify and invest over $50 million in primary education programs in Bangladesh that will educate 250,000 children that would have otherwise stayed out of school. I helped analyze hospital models that deliver high quality health care at very low costs and co-wrote a World Bank/IFC report on off-grid lighting in Africa. I came back to University with a wealth of professional experiences that were made possible only because I was able to surround myself with very smart people, doing interesting, meaningful things passionately. I write to you now from Brazil where Im helping build a start-up that that uses online crowd funding and fruit delivery systems to reinvigorate small farms and increase farmer incomes. My point in writing this rather long article has not been to advise, inspire, or motivate you. My observations are exactly that theyre mine and I encourage you to make your own. I also did not tell you about my course of study or career preferences to set an example mine is one of countless divergent choices you could and perhaps should make. What I do want to convey is an insight to choices or challenges you might face in the next few years. When you do, consider these observations or habits of mind and how they might prove useful. Are the academic choices you face today as all-important as they seem? Are you expanding your reach, connecting with the world beyond your immediate bubble? Are you using the new tools that your parents didnt have? Are you making time for yourself or being in situations that make you think and grow? Are you learning from those around you? As I said, asking meaningful questions might be more important than finding quick answers. Thanks for reading! Abhinav Nayar Class of 2010 Loyola School