How to give a pep talk to first-year university students

There are things I wish someone had told me before I started university. Like what the whole university business was about. What is a university for? Where should I invest my efforts? How to study? I do know the answers to those questions now, but that’s a bit too late. Oh well. But hey, now that I teach at a university myself, I have a chance to share those secrets with my students. This is what I told them last week.

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Now, this is the most important lecture of the whole programme. It has five parts, here we go.

Part 1: Life is a series of games

Some people see life as a series of games. When you were a child, I am sure you used to play the going to bed game with your parents. You tried to stay up as late as possible so you could watch videos or chat with friends, while mum and dad tried to make you go to sleep as early as possible because a) it's good for you and b) they wanted some time for themselves. Or take the dating game - one tries to get the best possible date in one's league (pun intended). Using this analogy, you have recently signed up for the game of higher education.

Part 2: Who is the game for?

The higher education game is not for everyone. First, it takes ambition, conscientiousness, and curiosity to do well in the game, and you were admitted to the programme because you managed to convince us that you are ambitious, conscientious, and curious.

The second condition for being accepted onto a programme is paying tuition. What are you buying by paying tuition? You are buying the opportunity to play the game, not to win it automatically. Tuition is like a gym membership fee, it gives you access to the premises, not results.

Part 3: Prizes

If higher education is a game, what can you win? There’s not just one, but four very valuable prizes: credibility, community,  conscientiousness, and competence in a field of your choice. Conveniently, all of them start with a C, and are essential ingredients to achieving the fifth C - a great career.

Prize 1: Credibility

What is a diploma, really? Essentially, it is a sheet of paper that says "We, University of Such-and-Such, subjected this person to a battery of semi-standardised tests and they passed them all. We think it means they will make for a reasonably capable employee." When recruiters see you have a degree on your CV, it signals to them you are not a complete dimwit and may know a thing or two about the field of your study. In other words, having a diploma lends credibility to your assertions about the knowledge and skills you claim to have on your CV.

Prize 2: Community

You will make a bunch of friends, meet a romantic partner, and exchange contact details with potential future colleagues or business partners during your studies. We don't need to talk about why it is generally good to have a partner (or partners) and friends, but a word on a professional network may be appropriate. Have you heard the saying "It’s not about what you know, but who you know"? It is partly true. Being part of a large, open network means that you can bring people together who need each other (e.g., start-up founders), your acquaintances can let you know if they come across a job opening you may like, and you can reach out to the experts in your field for advice.

Prize 3: Competence

Third, you will get to learn. When you have knowledge, it is hard for people to fool you. This is the most valuable prize of all three because learning gives you power. A degree will help you land a job, but you need knowledge and skills to bring about change - in your own life, in an organisation, your community, and the world.

Prize 4: Conscientiousness

Conscientiousness, or diligence, is another trait that pays outsized dividends when pursuing a successful career. The ability to organize yourself and work hard, and is something you will improve throughout your studies. We will throw activities, assignments and exams at you, and it is up to you to manage that workload.

Part 4: Strategy

Now that you know that you can win the game, it is time to choose your strategy. Over the years we have seen students choose one of three strategies. Only one of them works in the long term.

Strategy 1: The degree hunter

The degree hunter is just in the game for the degree. They try to do the bare minimum in order to pass, ideally without learning much, because they believe that all they need for now is a degree and they will learn everything else on the job. This strategy might, maybe, just maybe work for those of you who want a corporate career. However, if you want to make a positive change, you will need actual knowledge and skills. Also, having to work with a degree hunter in a group is super annoying, because they don't contribute much, which doesn't leave them with a lot of friends at the end of their studies.

Strategy 2: The way too nerdy

The nerd studies hard to ace assignments and exams. The extreme focus on assessments poses two dangers: (a) their learning is so focused on what is on the test that they forget to follow their curiosity, and explore what they would like to do after they finish studying. And (b) spending a lot of time studying leaves little time to socialise, so the danger is they might graduate with a cum-laude, but no friends.

Strategy 3: The all-rounder

The all-rounder’s goal is to collect all three prizes. Why? Because they recognise that each of them is incredibly valuable. And since they realise it will be a long time until they’ll have a chance to play the game again, if ever. Most people don't have a couple of years after they turn 25 to work, relatively worry-free, on their development like you guys do now. I would strongly recommend choosing this strategy because it makes your time here worthwhile, your study experience fun, and sets you up best for whatever comes after you graduate.

Part 5: Tactics

Now that we have discussed which prizes you should focus on, let me give you a few practical tips on how to get your hands on them.

Tactics for learning

Coming back to the gym analogy, paying for, or merely going to a gym does not bring results. You actually have to exercise. You can hire a personal trainer to show you how to work out effectively, but you have to do the work. In our programme, it’s the same. We, the instructors, put together a 'training programme' for you (each week, read papers, reflect on important questions, solve interesting problems), but that is about all we can do. You have to do the work. And don't stop at what is asked of you in assignments and exams. If you discover that you’re curious about a particular topic, follow that curiosity and learn more about it.

Tactics for obtaining a diploma

To preserve the value of their degree, a university needs to be selective about who receives it and who doesn’t. It makes that decision by testing students through assignments, exams and theses, and only those who do well enough in all of them receive a degree. The 'training programme', i.e. the learning activities you are asked to do each week, is designed to set you up for success in examinations, so follow it diligently and you will do just fine.

Tactics for expanding your network

There are two things you have to do to build a social network. One, you have to meet people and two, they have to at least somewhat like you. Where can you meet people? Go to parties, join a student association, start a conversation with a stranger. How to be likeable? I’ll leave that part to you, but I can’t help but give you one tip. Be a good team member in group assignments. Nothing causes as big and as instant a popularity drop as not doing your fair share in a team.

This is the end of the most important lecture of the programme. Good luck!