Instead I guess I went straight to working professionally with equipment they wished they had, got a head start by comparison and had more time to work with it because as a PhD I would have had to spend too much more time on wasteful bureaucracy, and that would have really added up over a lifetime.
The pay and opportunity discrepancy were noticeable when I was employed but I was always going to be an entrepreneur anyway, and it really helped owning everything I ever invented on my own plus leveraging all my other progress like I would not have been able to do otherwise.
I feel like I just didn't know what I didn't know. And I was making decisions on very little experience/information. The "adults"/"experts" didn't know what they were talking about or at least were not aware of their own biases/limitations.
Looking back, almost all the useful/important things I learned were self-directed.
I was immigrant here. Not a rich kid at all. I got scholarship to our state college based on my SATs but couldn’t accept because I was international student. I got my GC when I was in 3rd year.
I could have gone to NYU at full cost. Maybe I should have.
The network, caliber of people I met at my state college were so average. It kind of knee capped me as well in terms of elite opportunities because I think if I had gone to a “better” college I’d have met smart risk takers right off the rip instead of later on.
* More work semesters like Waterloo
* A class on career planning
* A class on financial planning
* Philosophy of science and engineering course