One of the difficulties in earning three degrees in four years is coming up with the idea. Most students just assume one degree takes four (or more) years. They don’t think of shortening that. So questioning this assumption is kind of tough, not tough because it’s hard to question but tough because it’s hard to know to question.
Another difficulty, the hardest part I think, is sustaining the idea and committing, each day, to pursue it. Most students, even if they came up with the idea, even if they questioned the typical four years it supposedly takes to earn one degree, wouldn’t question hard enough to take action on it every day. Most would write it off as impossible.
Once a student moves forward in those two areas, though, the rest is easy.
The rest is easy because then it’s just a matter of putting in a lot of work. And that’s easy because there aren’t a lot of creative decisions in the process. You already know the steps. You just run over them, instead of walking like everyone else.
Think about it. In the process of getting a degree, how many decisions do you have to make that have unknown answers, decisions where you don’t know what will most effectively lead to completing your degree faster?
- Deciding on a school?
- Deciding how to pay for it?
- Deciding on a major?
- Deciding which classes to take?
- Deciding which topics to use for your projects?
- Deciding where to get info for your projects?
- Deciding when to study?
- Deciding on what to do outside of school?
That’s pretty much it. The rest is all about churning, putting your head down and doing what you know needs to be done. There’s not a lot of uncertainty about how the process should unfold.
In contrast, some achievements actually are difficult. Some achievements force you to make tons of creative decisions along the way. There’s no clear path to achieving those goals. You have to make up the journey as you go.
I can’t give great examples for these types of goals because, by definition, they’re hard to come up with. Even more troubling, it’s hard to envision the steps to complete those goals or what the end product will even look like.
I’m not kidding about this. Compared to pursuing innovative ideas, it actually isn’t all that difficult to replicate what I did in school. It’s not that difficult to do what other people have done, better.
