As I look back on ugrad school, I conclude "Don't pay a lot for ugrad school." I can think of maybe three exceptions -- Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford, and n

As I look back on ugrad school, I conclude "Don't pay a lot for ugrad school." I can think of maybe three exceptions -- Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford, and not for the education but for who you meet. For the education, basically DIY -- do it yourself. Blunt truth: For a really good education, 'bout have to DIY anyway. How to do that? Mostly books. Now supplemented with the Internet. Maybe some help from a few profs. For the books, etc. find what looks like the best courses in all of the US and use those to build your own reading list. For a good education, need to do that anyway: Blunt truth, ugrad school is a busy time and won't get as much as you want. So, will leave with a diploma but also with a nice collection of materials have not carefully studied yet. Another blunt fact: Say, 3 courses each semester, two semesters per year, 4 years -- 24 courses. If you have as many as 4 of those really good, you are lucky. Usually the teaching really isn't very good, guys. Another blunt fact: ASAP, already by 8th grade, via parents, uncles, friends, whatever, try to get into, connected with, know about what is going on outside high school and college and relevant to your career options and, thus, also relevant to what you study in college. If a college can help get you connected with some promising real career directions, great, but don't count on it. Blunt fact: You have a good shot at getting about the best ugrad education possible by doing a lot of DIY, making your own investigations and connections, and going to a rather cheap state university and living cheap at home. The Internet has a lot of video clips of lectures in courses from famous universities, profs, etc. These clips expose the truth: There is a lot of poor teaching out there, and really good material is rare. In short, the person best to manage, direct, design your ugrad education is you. Don't just passively lean back and take what is given -- instead as here, be active, DIY, etc.