Austin Scholar #160: How to help your kid explore potential interests
& advice from a Stanford freshman
Hey, y'all!
This week from Austin Scholar...
Austin’s Anecdote: Advice from a Stanford freshman
How to help your kid explore potential interests
Scholar’s Sources: What I’ve been thinking about…
Stanford’s Spring Quarter has officially begun. This quarter, I’m taking multivariable integration, the introductory CS class, a sports analytics class, and the second quarter of German – all of which are super interesting, but not the easy course load that Spring Quarter typically advertises. My class schedule for this quarter is also super different to either of my previous two quarters’ – I only have one class that’s not a lecture, so it’s definitely been an adjustment.
I started Rush on Friday – I’m excited to tell y’all about my sorority experience and the skills that I used to be successful throughout this past weekend, so stay tuned for next week :)
Overall, Spring Quarter is off to a great start and I can’t wait to see what the end of this school year brings!
Austin’s Anecdote: Advice from a Stanford freshman
We’re back with more advice from Stanford freshmen!
This week, I talked to Alena Zhang, a fellow Flomie who worked with Goldman Sachs, Stanford Research, and a multitude of math and English tutoring programs. She clearly worked extremely hard in high school on both her academics and extracurricular activities, so I asked her what advice she’d have for other parents who want to support their child in the same way.
Here’s what she said:
“My parents honestly did the best they could’ve, and with hindsight, I don’t have any advice for them. Throughout my academic journey, they really just pushed me to do my best in all aspects of life, telling me to try my hardest no matter what. They were really firm in that they were serious about me doing well in school and extracurriculars, but in a way that wasn’t too overbearing or strict. I think striking that precarious balance between instilling a sense of discipline in your child and minimizing undue stress on your child is really important, and I’m lucky enough to have parents who were able to do that for me.”
I think her message highlights the idea of high standards and high support that I talked about a few weeks ago. Alena’s parents had high expectations for her success both in and out of school, but were supportive and encouraging at the same time. I highly recommend checking out this newsletter if you want to emulate the same behavior that helped a kid get into Stanford.
How to help your kid explore potential interests
Update from Austin the investor!
I’ve been reading three articles from The Rational Walk and scrolling on my list of experts on X as frequently as I can, and I've learned so much.
In classic Austin Scholar fashion, I’ve written a summary for every article I’ve read and used spaced repetition (review the knowledge every day, then once per week, then once per month) to reinforce that knowledge and ensure that I’m learning.
As much as I love all of the reading, I was looking for other ways to learn investing, and I found that one of the classic ways to learn investing is these stock picking contests to get hands-on practice. However, one of the things that Alpha taught through the multitude of financial literacy is that most games and simulations relating to money teach bad behaviors.
If it’s not real money, you won’t have as much stake in it and it could teach risky behaviors – that seventh grade boy who wants to YOLO it on a crypto coin teaches them bad habits. But when they have to invest it with the “Alphas” that they earn from doing their school work that can be cashed out to real money, it becomes more real – they want to be more careful.
That, of course, doesn’t mean the seventh grade boys don’t ever YOLO it on a crypto coin, but because they lose real money, it hurts. And it ends up a lesson better learned in seventh grade than at 27.
And I think that’s true for so many fields – learning the hard lessons when you’re young and protected both allows your kid to learn how to fail and teaches them about their field in a way they couldn’t without hands-on work.
As a parent, it’s important to be able to support your kid in their interests without forcing a career path on them or setting unreasonable expectations.
So how do you nurture and help your kid explore a potential interest – and do it on their terms?
Well, these are the traits I’ve recognized from my dad: