Postgrad tip

The days of avoiding the real world are finally over!

Having finished mine, here’s one piece of advice for anyone taking or planning to take postgraduate studies: ask questions.

The line that separates school from work is the freedom to sound stupid.
Graduate school exists so you can ask what your boss doesn’t have time to explain. The things you don’t know yet, and the things you didn’t even know you didn’t.

It will be tough.
It will test your patience.
Drain your savings.
Challenge your weekends.
But unlike the stock market, this is an investment you actually control.

Postgrad life isn’t college life.
Don’t show up just to pass. Don’t aim for the diploma, aim for the learning.

The quest for a few extra letters after your name shouldn’t be easy.

So if you ever find yourself writing “essays about life,” sitting through filler lectures, or enduring college-style presentations, pause and demand your money’s worth.

Don’t pay tuition for theory. Pay for transformation.

Ask questions.

Ask the professors who’ve done the work, not just read.

 Seek mentors who can connect the classroom to the boardroom.

Because in the end, graduate school isn’t proof that you’re smart.

It’s proof that you never stopped learning.

Will it be on the test?

In school, one question always floated around the room.

“Will this be on the exam?”

If the answer was no, everyone stopped listening.

We finished assignments because they were required. We studied to pass. We checked boxes, submitted outputs, and called it a day. Then we went out, played, or partied, because the work was done.

School trained us to think in tasks.
To wait for instructions.
To do only what’s graded.

Especially in graduate school, there is no "Loyalty award." "Most punctual," "Best in recitation."

Maybe that’s why so many people carry the same mindset into work and life.
We look for checklists. We wait for deadlines. We rush to finish instead of learning to grow.

It’s how the system trained us. Not to explore, but to comply.

But life outside the classroom isn’t graded the same way. There are no rubrics for growth. No medals for curiosity.

In the real world, no one hands you a score. You make your own.

So stop asking if it’s on the exam.
Do it because it’s worth learning.
Do it because it makes you better.

Because the real test never ends.