Benjamin Todd

I didn't have any specific ideas about how it would be useful, but I felt I learned a lot from the experience, and it turned out to be useful when I later worked to create our resources for people working on China-Western coordination around emerging technologies.

Jess, a case study in exploring.

Here's a real-life example.

When Jess graduated from maths and philosophy, she was interested in academia and leaned towards studying philosophy of mind, but was concerned that it would have little impact.

So the year after she graduated, she spent several months working in finance.

She didn't think she'd enjoy it, and she turned out to be right, so she felt confident eliminating that option.

She also spent several months working in non-profits and reading about different research areas.

Most importantly, she spoke to loads of people, especially in the areas of academia she was most interested in.

This eventually led to her being offered to study a PhD in psychology, with a focus on how to improve decision-making by policymakers.

During her PhD, she did an internship at a think tank that specialized in evidence-based policy and started writing about psychology for an online newspaper.

This allowed her to explore the public intellectual side of being an academic and the option of going into policy.

At the end of her PhD, she could have either continued in academia or switched into policy or writing.

She could also have gone back to finance or the non-profit sector.

Most importantly, she had a far better idea of which options are best.

A rational reason to shoot for the stars Young people are often advised to dream big, be more ambitious, or shoot for the stars.

Is that good advice?

Not always.

When asked, more than 75% of Division 1 basketball players thought they would play professionally, but only 2% actually made it.

Whether or not the players in the survey were making a good bet, they overestimated their chances of success by over 37 times.

Telling people to aim high doesn't make sense when people are so overconfident in their chances of success.