master survivial kit
so it begins. a new season. since i've come back here, there are 2-3 new students saying they are awed by my hardworking-ness. as much as i'm very flattered, i have to say that you are wrong. vietnamese community is small, and that's an illusion of the network (check some recent article).
people that work close to me or watch me closely know very well that i'm actually in deep shit. i try quite hard to look legitimate.
anyway, for some of you that already asked questions, i'll list here some things i find useful for surviving master (mostly MEC):
- accept that you are not einstein and work hard. it maybe difficult for you if you dont have the spur of poverty under your ass. try to think about an ambitious vision instead.
(fear driven energy is a bit more effective than indulgent visions, though it comes with a cost)
- practice until people say that skill of yours is innate. for example "you are born with this, you are gifted..."
when people say that, it means that they give up on working harder than you are willing to. it's a matter of how much you are willing to pay to have something.
which means that you have to choose wisely. choose what you feel like, choose whom you feel like.
i may be annoying some times (mostly due to my meticulous nervous tick), but if i'm useful to you, use me, and be nice in return. apart from psychological iritation, i'm fairly ok with other suffering.
i actually love talking about exercises, just come to see me. however, gibberish talking, female degrading jokes or intention to mine privacy data will be counted as very very negative. (if you want examples of this, ask me).
- if you want something, be verbose about it. consider it's your responsibility to make yourself clear in the first move.
(and be short)
even if you are fast, start early and start before anyone else
start small
do exercises. think. exchange.
for introvert, the idea of exchanging information may be intimidating. and it's true. expect people (that care) to cry over your first writing. but "if you are not embarrased about your version 0, you've waited too long".
btw, young and pompous is not offending. lazy and pretentious is.
- get feedback and iterate n times
People relentlessly read my versions despite the marginal value of reading me drops to zero. im grateful for their intellectual spending on me and for me. i can pay it forward.
- fail fast, fail often
"im pessimistic by nature. people fight because they hope they'll win. i always think i'll lose. i fight anyway. sometimes i win."
even when my thesis was still a naive and very premature one, i started to send it to events. just to fail. ("rejection is not failure" anyway - pg). but after each submission, i see the naive details and can rewrite it better. i never dare to read their comments (if they do comment) when i get rejected, though. i'm kinda coward. i just take the no and move on.
usually when they dont want to say yes, they automatically generate some reasonable reasons, but sometimes these reasons dont matter. "take the no, dont take the why".
hearing repeatedly "no" is hard. avoid burn-out by doing small achievement between big failure.
the competitive edge of something is in its social capital.
"you really are the average of people you spend time the most with". dont blindly accept authority. this comes at some social cost.
- if you like to be fancy, work hard. if you are lazy, dont be fancy. these two compositions are equally socially-acceptable.