I think there are some close cousins of "nothing to lose" that are at work too. As an immigrant your out of your own system and its expectations. Say you come

I think there are some close cousins of "nothing to lose" that are at work too. As an immigrant your out of your own system and its expectations. Say you come from a background where your reference group mostly follows a path of: go to high school, go to 3 year Uni, travel for a year, then either start climbing corporate ladders or more Uni, etc. Obviously, not everyone follows the exact same path, but there is a lot of similarity. This peers group might be people your own age that you know. Older siblings, parents or even mostly theoretical. Most people have something like it and it is how they create their expectations for themselves. Taking a year "off" after high school would put you "behind" your peer group. Figuring out a way of finishing Uni a year early would put you ahead. People with strong peer groups cluster around the median. This applies to performance as well as choices. I don't know how well the psychological mechanisms are understood, but I guess our self expectations are both very important determinant of performance and choices and very influenced by peer groups. Derek Sivers wrote a good article called There is no speed limit.^ In a nutshell, a cool musician called Kimo Williams taught him 2 years with of Berkley music curriculum in five lessons when he was 17. He set an intense pace and expected him to keep up. Just because it takes 2 years in a college context doesn't mean it needs to take 2 years. Immigrants are islands, relatively. They are on a path with few peers. Taking a few years to do something won't put you behind because there is nothing to put you behind of. There are fewer safe choices that an immigrant is hesitant to deviate from. This is good for making outliers. ^http://sivers.org/kimo http://sivers.org/kimo