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Paul Millerd's new book, The Pathless Path inspired this post.
My Pathless path
German High school — September 2021
I've always feared public speaking. As I stood before the class and listened to the teacher introduce me in German, my heart was racing. After all, I was in Germany as a cultural ambassador. It was my job to represent America well.
I took a deep breath, reminded myself what things were in my control, and started sharing about my life back home before fielding questions from an enthusiastic group of students.
The daily high fives and shouts of "Connor!" from students in the hallway are signs that I am fulfilling my task well, and I enjoy being at German high school, but this is not at all how I had imagined postgrad life.
My current life is so unrecognizable from the one I had been planning that it begs the question: When did I leave my default path for this new one?
Change of direction
"The Pathless path is a define-your-own-success adventure." - Paul Millerd
Choosing the Pathless path took me around the world, let me follow my curiosity, and made me reject my previous aspirations for new ones. However, to understand how I ended up on the pathless path, we first need to revisit my default path.
"By a default path, I mean a series of decisions and accomplishments needed to be seen as a successful adult."- Paul Millerd
My Default Path
When I was thinking about where to go to college, I only looked at two statistics:
Acceptance rate &
The average salary of graduates
When I reflect on why, the motivation was clear: money and status, though I would never have admitted that.
Bowdoin College
Senior year of high school, I decided I would study at Bowdoin College, a "little Ivy." If you'd have asked me why, I might have said proximity to my grandparents or the beautiful campus, but really I thought it would help me get a high-paying job.
Although my grades weren't good enough, I figured it would just sort of work out. I went up to the campus in Maine for an interview and came home with a polar bear sweatshirt. But then I got rejected.
Getting rejected from Bowdoin was like taking a baseball bat to my ego. Up to that point, pretty much everything had worked out for me. Now, I saw my golden ticket slipping away.
Settling on State School
With my options slim, I drove up to SUNY Geneseo to visit Rory, an old friend from high school. I had applied to Geneseo as insurance but never considered state school an option.
Again if you asked me why it came back to status. I was embarrassed to admit to my classmates and myself that I would be going to a normal state school.
At my American high school, we had College Decision Day. On College Decision Day, everyone wore merch from their future college. Here is how I came to school on that day:
When I look at that photo, I see a boy using humor to cover up his intellectual insecurity.
Keeping up appearances
You see, at my high school, there was a bit of a smart kid bubble. The smart kids and kids with highly supportive parents (I put myself in the latter camp) took college-level classes mostly separated from the other students.
Within that bubble, I was one of the worst students. But outside of that bubble, I had a reputation for being a "smart kid"— mostly because my brother had graduated in the top .01 percent of his class two years before.
I had internalized that narrative to the point that looking smart had become more important to me than becoming smart. Things changed in college.
Big Fish in a Small Pond
I arrived at college as an economics major. And if you asked me why I chose economics, I probably would've said I found it interesting (true), but again the deeper motivation was money and status.
Deep down, I wanted to be a teacher, and all the personality tests I took told me I should become one, but I rejected that path for the same reasons I chose to study econ.
A highlight from freshman year was a professor, Dr. Shuo Chen, who taught intro to microeconomics. She was supportive of me and helped me feel confident in my intellect. In hindsight, her support changed my life.
Also, I was pleasantly surprised that college was easier than high school. I had already been taking college-level courses for my last two years of high school but now I had twice as much free time without all-day school and basketball.
Hoop Jumping
I got a perfect 4.0 GPA my first semester while partying over fifteen hours a week. While that may sound impressive, and I did study hard, I also intentionally engineered my schedule and class load to get straight A's with as little effort as possible.
Paul calls this strategy "hoop jumping." — A combination of ratemyprofessor.com, office hours, and word of mouth from upper-classmen to ensure good grades.
I was not alone in this pursuit. Basically everyone I knew at college tried their hardest to get good grades as easily as possible. A sentiment Paul noticed a decade earlier as well,
"..my classmates and I spent as much time finding loopholes to improve our grades as we did studying for tests."
It wasn't until after college, free to pursue my intellectual curiosity that I began learning for learning's sake. This speaks to a broken system.
Trying to become an Investment Banker
At college, I discovered most ambitious econ majors wanted to work in Investment Banking(IB). However, we were at SUNY Geneseo, a small school that my own dad still can't pronounce. To be from a target school like Harvard or Bowdoin is a massive advantage.
For a school its size, Geneseo does a good job of providing opportunities for its students. I got to interview with alumni from Citi and regional banks. Still, nothing can compare to being from a coveted target school.
Targeting a Target School
So, I decided I would transfer to a target school. I set my sights on Columbia because my grandfather had studied there, and I thought I might get a legacy advantage.
My midterm grades were straight A's again, and I spent hours preparing the best application I could. The night before the deadline, my mom spent four hours on the phone perfecting my essays with me. I am grateful to have parents who support me so much. However, I still didn’t cut it.
Getting Rejected from Columbia
Getting rejected from Columbia was the second baseball bat to my ego. I went over to the local waterfall and just cried. I can still feel that deep, deep pain while writing these words.
This time hurt a lot more than Bowdoin because I felt I had deserved it. I hadn't applied myself in high school and understood why Bowdoin rejected me, but I had sent perfect grades to Columbia, spent hours on my application, and my best still wasn't good enough.
Staying at Geneseo
After that, I decided to stay at Geneseo and finish my degree early.
The funny thing is nearly everything at Geneseo was PERFECT.
I was for once excelling at school, I had great relationships with my professors, and my social network was rock solid. But, besides the non-target school insecurity, there was just one thing nagging at me but we will talk about that in part two.
In hindsight, it feels naive that I was willing to throw away such a fantastic situation in the pursuit of status.
The Call to Adventure
After freshman year, I went on an Outward Bound trip to Utah. As I turned the corner to the hotel lobby, I saw a beautiful woman reading a German novel. In the blink of an eye, my whole life changed. I wrote about that powerful call to adventure in one of our first posts.
But more on how that trip took me off the default path to where I am now in part two.
Thank you for reading!
Life is constantly redirecting us. Being able to navigate a new course is the essence of living a good one.