Agency Wiki

Beginning thoughts:

I’m soon done with high-school, and I want to use that coming milestone to formulate some advice I would give myself I would now give to an agentic high-schooler. This list is far from exhaustive, and has just been created. It’s meant to aggregate many many perspectives corresponding to the wide variety of possibilities of high-school.

This note to a younger self can be useful for you, as long as you’re willing to play life on hard mode: to actively seek out challenges and approaches that force you to stop, think and reconsider. You’re willing to endure obstacles that will forge who you are, but not just if they give you some direct reward (grades, status, etc…).

Quick thoughts:

• model expansion: find interesting people around you => track them down
• discover their niches, dive into them, form impressions
• latch onto stuff and go deep, keep it fun
• go for any opportunities
• don’t adopt tryhard / status / flex / comparison mindset
• cold dm / email people

History:

I really care about helping young people (middle/high-school) who are interested in STEM stuff but don't know where to start, and an easy way to do that is expanding their exposure to the opportunity space that surrounds them. https://twitter.com/uzpg_/status/1494009227907670016

Community outreach and opportunities for teens / young kids, in the period where they are finding their interests and aspirations, can be truly life-changing. https://twitter.com/uzpg_/status/1453842576654622727?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”

Resources: (will summarize each, and add many more )

• https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/vHR64sZESzqn8vc37/letter-advice-for-high-school-1
• Paul G:
  • http://www.paulgraham.com/hs.html
    • http://paulgraham.com/lesson.html
    • http://paulgraham.com/own.html
    • http://paulgraham.com/genius.html
• Cal newport (?, didn’t read)
• A mathematician’s lament
• http://colah.github.io/posts/2020-05-University
• https://samenright.com/2021/08/08/a-list-of-projects-and-microgrants-you-should-apply-for/

• [[Euan

  5603]]

• https://artofproblemsolving.com/wiki/index.php/Resources_for_mathematics_competitions

[…] many more to come

More specific: [to be developed on]

• My STEM perspective:
  • learn to code (obviously)
  • contribute to open source initiatives
  • learn by building projects that satisfy personal needs, grow from there (PBL)
  • learn ethical hacking => capture the flag
  • join algorithmics clubs / camps, etc…
  • join mathematics clubs / camps, etc…
  • start a blog, even if it’ll be bad