You Can Use Pre-Learning to Kick Off a Virtuous Cycle

Even if you aren’t a genius, you appear to be one in everyone else’s eyes, and consequently you get a ticket to those opportunities reserved for top students.

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It’s worth pre-learning math courses before you officially take them in school/college.

You guard yourself against all sorts of risks such as the course

• moving too quickly,
• brushing over concepts,
• explaining things poorly,
• assuming knowledge of important but frequently missing prerequisite material,
• not offering enough practice opportunities,
• ...

There are a hundred different ways to teach a class poorly, and most classes suffer in at least a handful of those aspects.

This is especially true at university, when lectures are often unsuitable for a first introduction to a topic.

But if you pre-learn the material, you’re not depending on the teacher to teach it to you, which means you’re immune to even the worst teaching.

You’re basically guaranteed an A in the class.

Of course, the natural objection is “won’t you be bored in class?” –

but if you do super well in advanced classes, especially at university, then that opens all kinds of doors to recommendations for internships, research projects with professors, etc.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re doing super well because you’re learning in real-time or because you pre-learned the material.

When you blow a course out of the water while also interacting with the professor, that sets you up for a great recommendation letter –

which is vital not just for high schoolers applying to college, but also for college students applying to summer research programs and graduate schools.

Plus, it can open the door to working on a research project with the professor, or having them connect you to jobs, internships, and other opportunities with people in their network.

Basically, you can use pre-learning to kick off a virtuous cycle.

Even if you aren’t a genius, you appear to be one in everyone else’s eyes, and consequently you get a ticket to those opportunities reserved for top students.

Students who receive and capitalize on these opportunities can launch themselves into some of the most interesting, meaningful, and lucrative careers that are notoriously difficult to break into.

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