Academic Advising

Name	Mike Izbicki (call me Mike)
Email	mizbicki@cmc.edu
Office	Adams 216, https://cmc-its.zoom.us/j/644800111
Webpage	https://izbicki.me
Research	Machine Learning (see izbicki.me/research.html for some past projects)
Fun Facts	grew up in San Clemente, 7 years in the navy, phd/postdoc at UC Riverside, taught in DPRK

My role as your advisor:

1. Academic advice, especially for
   1. Math
   2. Computer science
   3. Data science
2. Career advice
   1. Graduate school
   2. Military/defense companies
   3. FAANG (Facebook/Apple/Amazon/Netflix/Google) careers
   4. You probably shouldn't listen too much to a professor's advice about non-academic jobs. We didn't choose that career path, so we don't know as much as we think. Exceptions are professors who worked in industry before becoming professors, but that's rare.
3. If you have other questions, I can help you find the answers

Your homework:

1. Sign up for a 1-1 advising time with this google sheet
2. Before we meet
   1. Create lists of
      1. career goals
      2. majors/sequences that you are interested in
      3. extracurriculars that you're interested in
      4. any other goals I might be able to help with
   2. Use the course catalog and course section list to select classes that you might like to take in the fall, including times
      1. Select a language course
      2. Select a math course (see the flowchart)
      3. Select at least 3 freshman writing/humanities seminar (FWS/FHS) courses
      4. Select at least 2 courses from:
         1. Economics (ECON 50)
         2. Government (GOV 20)
         3. History
         4. Science
      5. Select a PE
3. Based on these selections, we will create a fall schedule for you in the 1-1 meeting

General advice for college:

1. Scott Adam (Dilbert)'s career advice:

   If you want something extraordinary, you have two paths:

   1. Become the best at one specific thing.
   2. Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things

   Capitalism rewards things that are both rare and valuable. You make yourself rare by combining two or more “pretty goods” until no one else has your mix.

2. How to select classes

   1. Take lots of classes in different fields of study
      1. The more math you take, the easier all the non-math courses become
      2. For example, the hardest part about econ courses is understanding the mathematical models used
   2. You don't need a perfect GPA
      1. Better to take a hard course and get a B/C than an easy course and get an A
      2. Google's VP in charge of hiring people says "GPA’s are worthless as a criteria for hiring, and test scores are worthless" because they don’t predict how productive an employee will be.
      3. Failure is actually good (it's Amazon's secret to success)

3. Get to know at least 1 prof in each department well

   1. This prof can be your informal advisor on which classes to take in their field
   2. Go to their office hours
      1. Ask big picture questions or questions not about class
      2. I have never heard a professor complain about students coming to office hours, but they often complain about students NOT coming
   3. If you want to do research with a professor, ask them "how can I help make your research more productive?"

4. Stay healthy

   1. Get 8+ hours of sleep every night
      1. all-nighters work in the short term, but not the long term
   2. Regular exercise
      1. good for your brain
      2. avoid the freshman 15... CMC has good food...
   3. I personally avoid coffee/soda
   4. https://www.reddit.com/r/nootropics/wiki/beginners

Other links:

1. Salaries for computer / data science positions
   1. https://www.levels.fyi/
2. General college advice for math / cs / ds majors:
   1. http://www.paulgraham.com/college.html
   2. https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/692609/how-to-be-a-successful-math-undergraduate-student
   3. https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/1041623/advice-to-young-mathematicians#
   4. https://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/92y93k/whats_the_best_advice_you_can_give_to_a_math/
   5. http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html
   6. http://matt.might.net/articles/what-cs-majors-should-know/
3. Russian webpages hosting free college books:
   1. https://b-ok.org/
   2. https://sci-hub.tw/