[softwaredoug]

Learn to love learning, find enthusiasm in growth and challenge. University Education CAN be huge for that, beyond the 100 level courses.

Learn to share your learnings with others, publicly. Do it 1-1. Blog, speak, share on social media. This will create public engagement and if you are enthusiastic and positive, will lead to many opportunities. Don’t hoard knowledge. The more generous you are with knowledge, the more people will want your expertise.

Work on the hardest problems. For example, do you specialize in crafting prompts for LLMs or do you understand the math behind LLMs themselves? I’d argue try and do the latter, and share and learn enthusiastically. You’ll find higher paying and more interesting work.

Find others that love learning. The coworker who doesn’t value their growth, who turns their nose up at the “nerd” who dares to spend time on their growth is toxic. OTOH the colleague excited to grow will drive you to be better and be an invaluable connection your whole career. You can find great collaborators at many places: university, job, whatever.

Be humble. You’ll never master even your chosen field. Stay close to people smarter than you. Don’t assume you can’t learn from somebody. A great quote is “we are called upon to teach when asked to learn when we are fortunate”