Notes & Bibliography

This book has a digital layer: videos, archives, spreadsheets, posts, source trails, and weird rabbit holes that are meant to be explored.

This section is for readers who want to check claims, go deeper, or follow the same trails of curiosity that shaped this book.

Source Trails by Chapter

These 828 source links are ordered by where they show up in the manuscript: part, chapter, section, then link.

Front Matter

Jailbroken Minds

• Curiosity @ Illinois
• The UIUC Talkshow
• UIUCFreeFood
• Juan David’s Website
• Aaryaman’s Website

PART 1: Secrets

Chapter 1: What The University Does Not Want You To Know

1.1 You Can Request Your Admission File

• The UIUC Talkshow
• UIUCFreePianos
• IlliniMemories.com
• biocomputational physics
• short films
• Lithium
• Vertical Landing Rocket
• 100 essays
• love math
• marathons

1.2 Use the UIUC subreddit

• post

1.3 Read The Whole University Catalog

• available
• here
• online
• email
• more background on how the Whole University Catalog came to be.

1.4 Learn How The University Burned Marc Andreessen

• The Journey from 0 to 1, from Mosaic to Netscape, Marc Andreessen and Mike Maples Jr, a16z Podcast, December 16th, 2019
• Profit Without Honor. Seattle Times

1.5 Learn How The University (Almost) Burned Juan David and UIUCFreeFood

• 1
• 2
• 3
• videos

1.7 Read This 1968 Manifesto

• To the University, with Love
• summary I wrote.

Quick Story: The Pandemic Airbag (and the FOIA that Almost Popped It)

• Three Professors and a $24 Million Miracle
• wrote a revealing article

This is just one example, one small case.

• mosaic
• Swords of Armageddon

1.8.1 What Do You Learn From Reading FOIA Files?

• request your LexisNexis file
• here's a real example of LexisNexis requesting student data from UIUC.
• Here’s an actual FOIA request Coca-Cola sent to the University of Illinois at Chicago.
• requested exactly that
• FOIA request

Want to see past FOIA requests yourself?

• FOIA Logs
• here
• here

You can just file FOIA Requests

• here
• MuckRock
• here’s a great primer

FOIA Ideas to Get You Started

• here’s a great primer

1.9 Skydiving Naked Over The Main Quad

• NASA eventually got involved too.
• Tactile Situational Awareness System
• Army
• How a Naked Skydive Inspired a Way to Keep Pilots Oriented in Flight
• article
• digital version of the 1974 Illio
• here
• here
• Kyle Mayotte

1960: The Leo Koch Affair – Sex, Censorship, and Student Protest

• The Daily Illini
• https://www.library.illinois.edu/slc/research-education/timeline/1960-1969/
• https://dailyillini.com/opinions-stories/2013/11/18/wozniak-firing-shows-that-tenure-not-limitless/
• https://archive.org/details/illinicenturyone00eber/page/n225/mode/2up

1967: Free Speech vs. the Clabaugh Act – Secret Files Exposed

• https://www.library.illinois.edu/slc/research-education/timeline/1960-1969/
• Library link
• web link.

1968: Project 500 Sit-In – Black Students vs. the Establishment

• https://project500.omeka.net/exhibits/show/bpi/unrest/recordbreakingarrest

1970: Strikes and Riots – The Vietnam War Hits Campus

• https://archive.is/M7weK
• Radicals in the Heartland: The 1960s Student Protest Movement at the University of Illinois

1986: Shantytown on the Quad – Apartheid Divestment Showdown

• https://www.flickr.com/photos/98945443@N05/16108244227/
• Archived here
• https://africanactivist.msu.edu/organization/210-813-520/?pp=24&page=1
• Archived here.
• https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/university-illinois-students-gain-partial-divestment-apartheid-south-africa-1985-1987.

1992: “La Marcha” and the Police Riot – Latinx Students Demand Change

• Archived here.
• https://dailyillini.com/uncategorized/2017/04/20/latinx-students-1992-protest-sparks-solidarity/

2009: Clout Goes to College – The Secret Admissions Scandal

• Archived here.
• https://www.npr.org/2009/09/23/113135776/university-of-illinois-president-quits-over-scandal

2019: Gaming the Financial Aid System – The Guardianship Loophole

• recent cases
• here
• https://www.propublica.org/article/university-of-illinois-financial-aid-fafsa-parents-guardianship-children-students
• here
• https://dailyillini.com/opinions-stories/2019/08/26/emancipation-loophole-proves-need-for-change-in-admissions/
• https://www.piratewires.com/p/doge-brown-university-student-email-admininstrative-staff

1.11 The Traditions

• died
• Donkey Basketball
• May Fete
• geodesic dome.

1.12 UIUC squirrels are special. This is why.

• robotic squirrel
• The Robotic Squirrel Project
• Source

Chapter 2: College Hacks

2.1.1 Follow Event Calendars & Newsletters

• Calendar
• Lunch on Us

2.1.2 Free Food Hotspots Around Campus

• see this list.

2.2 Free Parking?

• This also applies in other areas beyond parking.

2.17 Campus-Wide Events to Look For and Participate

• comedy
• guitar
• another time
• one time
• They managed to create the hottest steakhouse in New York for one night only.
• video
• Spend a whole year creating a project you care about and present it then.

2.18 UIUCFreePianos: Find Pianos at UIUC

• UIUCFreePianos

2.21 The UIUC Talkshow

• Hell to the Naw
• The UIUC Talkshow

2.22 Go to a Dancing Club

• See this video of him dancing.

2.23 ACX Meetups Discord Server

• here

2.24 See How Much Money Your Professors Make

• Salary Guide
• comprehensive FAQ
• the football coach
• here’s what he said

2.25 Learn The History of UIUC and Champaign-Urbana

• Jenny Johnson
• one
• University Archives Blog
• Distributed Museum

2.26 Check out The Daily Illini archives

• here
• An Illini century; one hundred years of campus life

2.31 How to Break Housing Contracts (Legally)?

• Source
• The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley
• Source

2.33 Access to Buildings After Hours

• Open Hours

2.35 Off-Campus Hacks

• Full list of I-Card perks
• Student discount directory

2.37.3 The Map Library

• Jenny Johnson.

Chapter 3: How to Create Your Own Major

3.4 My Journey & My IPS Documents

• IPS Packet

It took me three tries

• Here are my full application

3.5.2 No One Gives a Shit About Your Major

• YouTube

PART 2: Academics

Chapter 5: Classes

5.1 Take CS 124

• Geoffrey Challen
• every day
• Watch the UIUC Talkshow conversation we had with Geoffrey Challen. It was one of the best episodes ever.

5.9 Prerequisites Are Fake

• Towers of Knowledge Have No Foundations

5.12 Take Math Classes

• love math

5.23 Go Through These Two Templates Before Every Test

• How to Take Tests:

5.26 Syllabus Week: Part 1

• template

5.27 Syllabus Week: Part 2

• Curiosity @ Illinois
• Curiosity @ Illinois

5.28 Don’t Use the GPA Website

• Divide and Blunder

5.29 Your Goal: A Completely Unique Transcript

• The combinatorial space of possible transcripts (i.e., take unusual classes)

5.30 “The Most Damaging Thing You Learned in School...”

• The Lesson to Unlearn

5.35 The System is Fucked...

• minefield

5.36 A Modest Proposal: How to Bring Back Academic Freedom

• email

5.41 Don't Take Business or Entrepreneurship Classes

• The Lean Startup

5.42 Retake Classes to Save Your GPA

• source
• source

5.44 Testing Out with Proficiency Exams

• source
• source

5.47 How to Get Accepted into UIUC After Being Rejected: Backdoor Major Admissions to UIUC

• source

A Quick Story

• here
• full episode.

Chapter 6: Professors

6.3 Professors are Great BUT...

• TikToks

6.6 It’s Not Really About Professors

• The Disadvantages of an Elite Education

6.8 How to Piss Off Your Professors (Without Even Trying)

• A professor tells me to switch majors out of fury
• A professor tells me to drop out
• A professor tells me to do something else and does not allow me to come to class

6.10 The Teachers Who Change Your Life

• 2025 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
• The UIUC Talkshow
• Make Something Wonderful

Chapter 7: What To Study?

7.1 Choose for Yourself

• The Glass Bead Game

7.4 Liberal Arts Majors Can (Sometimes) Make More Money Than Engineers

• A study

1. SOMETHING REALLY HARD 🥵

• POD OF JAKE

3. YOU CAN DO BOTH 🤩

• The UIUC Talkshow

7.9 Tell Your Parents to Close Their Eyes

• 1,000 True Fans

7.11 The Engineering Distortion Field

• make you rich, famous, or happy
• what suits you.

7.16 Don’t Study Business

• Financial Theory by John Geanakoplos.

So, what’s wrong with studying "business"?

• UIUC Billionaire Tells Business Students (in front of Larry Gies) To Transfer to Computer Science or Engineering

Don’t Be a Career

• Speech at Palo Alto High School

7.17 Don’t Study Business: Part 2

• My Life with the Saints

7.19 Humanities: Part 2

• recite cool poems from memory

7.23 College is Not About Getting a Job

• 1,000 True Fans

PART 3: Projects

Chapter 8: Projects

8.6 How Great Friendships Start

• The UIUC Talkshow
• creating something meaningful together

8.7 Make Shit and Don’t Judge It

• Matt Farley
• Riley Walz
• story
• The Motern Method

Chapter 9: Funding For Your Projects

C. Philanthropic micro-grants & fellowships

• Massive spreadsheet with all sorts of grants.

D. Crowdfunding

• example

Another Email Template (Corporate Sponsorship Example)

• Sponsorship Package PDF

9.5 UIUC Money

• Illini Union Awards and Scholarships
• Illini Dads Grants
• Illini Moms Association’s Scholarships, Awards, and Grants

Chapter 10: Project Ideas

Parking

• here
• here
• UIUCFreePianos

Student Projects Archive

• here

Apartment Search Website

• tried

Make ICES Form Public

• conversation

Ridesharing at UIUC

• This is exactly how I would do it

Essay about Urbana-Champaign

• Jenny Johnson
• one

Keep People Informed

• Illiniway is another good example.

Be like Vishu

• Vishu Da King

Anonymous Advice Column

• UIUCFreeFood

Fuck Canvas

• Create an alternative.

Mental Health Calls

• COAST
• REACH
• Urbana’s crisis response

Pop Up Experiences

• here

Create a “Reality Club”

• inspired

Subleasing Solution

• We tried this with Midwest Hackers.

Help Professors Commercialize Research

• here

Write An Illini Century and a Half

• An Illini Century: One Hundred Years of Campus Life
• YouTube videos

Start New Traditions

• more background on how the Whole University Catalog came to be.

FOIA Investigations

• the student who almost exposed the university.

Internal UIUC Emails

• Internal Tech Emails
• requested exactly that

Use FOIA Requests to Make Cool Visualizations

• “crisis comms” playbooks
• FOIA request

Humans of [Your City/College]

• David Rockefeller’s Rolodex.

10.1 Get Inspired and Create Things

• email

Chapter 11: Projects I Worked On

• Curiosity @ Illinois
• Illini Memories
• UIUCFreeFood
• UIUCFreeFriends
• UIUCFreePianos
• 300 TikToks in 16 weeks
• Chronicles of the Future
• short films
• Spanish journalism
• The UIUC Talkshow
• YouTube Channel
• Buckminster Fuller obsession
• Lithium
• SIMÓN
• Venezuelan Migrant Crisis in the United States
• AI Personal Tutor
• building a drone from scratch
• CopySource
• Duplicate Spotify Playlists
• DupliPlay
• FuckGenEds.com
• Juan David’s Website
• light-detecting lamp
• love math
• Personal Flying Vehicle
• Profitable Affordable Housing
• QR Code Website
• Vertical Landing Rocket
• bringing a “controversial speaker” to campus
• Carajo.org
• College Boba: How My Friends and I Made $74.35 in Profit Selling Boba on a $46 Budget
• guitar
• marathons
• piano
• selling arepas
• Teaching myself math
• The Internship List
• UIUC Undergraduate Research Program Advice
• We tried this with Midwest Hackers.

Chapter 12: How To Actually Get People To Care About Your Event, Project, Startup, Party, or RSO (at UIUC or wherever you are)

• Curiosity @ Illinois
• The UIUC Talkshow
• UIUCFreeFood
• selling boba
• You and Your Research

12.1 THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO GET PEOPLE TO CARE ABOUT YOUR PROJECT, EVENT, COMPANY, PARTY, OR WHATEVER IT IS YOU'RE DOING

• Calendar
• link
• UIUCFreeFood
• look at a video of me)
• that’s what I did
• example of how I did it
• TV interview.
• The Rapping Professor
• TikTok
• another time
• College Boba: How My Friends and I Made $74.35 in Profit Selling Boba on a $46 Budget
• Campus Takeover: Marketing Strategies for Dominating Any University
• Pico Masala
• Tyler, The Creator

PART 4: Research, Internships, and Jobs

Chapter 13: Research

13.1 Why Do Research at All?

• minefield
• misleading or fraudulent.

13.8 Research Programs at UIUC

• UIUC Undergraduate Research Program Advice

13.11 The Elevator at the Career Fair

• The UIUC Talkshow

Do Science Yourself

• invitation to a secret society.

13.13 Where to Start? Follow Your Curiosity

• How To Ask Questions The Smart Way

13.14 Doing the Work Isn’t Enough. You Have to Sell It

• You and Your Research
• Part of the World: Fractals of Ethics - A Drama in Three Acts

Chapter 14: Internships

Strategy #5: Learn from Keene

• archived
• Check out the video on LinkedIn

Strategy #6: More cool examples

• Original video she made
• Post confirming she got hired
• Vishu Da King made a video doing push-ups
• story
• His advice is to never apply, create a demo, and email it directly to CEOs.

14.6 Get a Real Summer Job (aka Leave the Bubble)

• The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Getting Ahead

Chapter 15: Jobs

15.1 Do You Actually Need To Make Money?

• There’s a place for everyone.
• John Collison
• SIMÓN
• "What's your major?"
• inner rings
• magician

15.2 Three (Very Basic) Rules

• Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charlie Munger

15.4 Jobs During College

• Do Things that Have Greater Outputs than Your Inputs

Quick Guide to On-Campus Jobs (Pros & Cons)

• Guide to Research Park

Q: Any cool stories?

• Shantaram

15.7 Better Alternatives to Traditional Campus Jobs

• Andrew Yatzkan

What people always pay for

• Carmen Rossi on The UIUC Talkshow

15.8 How to Find a Job After College

• “quit your job and become the wild and ambitious elites you wish to see in the world. Live by instinct in the untracked frontier, shoot your shot, and live or die by your intuitive visions of what must be done. You can carry out your cosmic duty and win glory only in the bold attempt.”

5. Show, Don’t Tell

• example

PART 5: Social

Chapter 16: How to Meet People

16.9 Don’t Wait To Get Invited

• Reddit post

16.10 Everyone Is Shy

• Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I'd Known Earlier

16.14 Create Your Group of Friends: Part 2

• gap semester
• The Robotic Squirrel Project
• bus drivers
• Tyler Cowen

16.18 Fuck Networking

• Don’t Network. Make Friends.

Chapter 17: Friends vs "Friends"

17.2 Just Let It Happen

• Man’s Search for Meaning

17.4 Bars: Can You Make Friends? Part 2

• Carmen Rossi on The UIUC Talkshow

17.7 Is This The Reason Why People Drink...?

• The Human Odyssey

17.12 You Will Not Find Real Friendship by Begging to Be “In”

• inner rings
• belonging

17.14 Stop Pretending to Like Parties. Create Your Own Weekend.

• Geoffrey Challen

Quick Story

• movie

17.15 Energy & “Yes” People

• On The Road

17.16 The Three Kinds of Friendship (and the Only One That Lasts)

• The UIUC Talkshow

Chapter 18: Dating

18.4 Want to Change The World? Ask Someone Out First

• here

18.7 You're single because you're probably not even trying at all

• series

18.8 You’re single because you’re not meeting people through friends

• two-thirds of romantic relationships

18.10 But At The Same Time, This:

• Letter to Wilhelmina van Gogh

18.16 Know What You Want

• what you want

18.17 Don’t Be Afraid of Rejection

• what-ifs.
• Letters to a Young Poet

18.18 It’s Ok To Try

• thirsty

18.19 This Might Be the Most Important Decision You Ever Make

• David Brooks
• How to Pick Your Life Partner – Part 1
• How to Pick Your Life Partner – Part 2
• The Marriage Decision: Everything Forever or Nothing Ever Again

18.20 Just Send the Message

• Watch the UIUC Talkshow conversation we had with Geoffrey Challen. It was one of the best episodes ever.
• Letters to Milena

18.24 Why We Crave Love

• Shantaram

18.25 Love your Solitude

• Letters to a Young Poet

18.29 You Can’t Plan to Meet the People Who Will Change Your Life

• Make Something Wonderful

18.30 They’re Gonna Fall in Love with You

• They’re Gonna Fall in Love with You

PART 6: University Love

Chapter 19: University Bureaucracy

19.1 For The Ease of The Masters

• The Wealth of Nations

19.5 How to Find and Talk to a Bureaucrat Who Usually Doesn’t Interact with Students?

• The UIUC Talkshow

A Quick Story

• we randomly filmed a short film
• A professor tells me to drop out
• A professor tells me to switch majors out of fury

19.12 The Fountainhead

• The Fountainhead
• East of Eden

Chapter 20: Bureaucracy FAQ

Q: Do student petitions actually matter at all?

• How the UIUC Department of Aerospace Engineering has Failed Its Students, and What it Can Do About It

Q: They keep blocking my project. Should I directly confront them, or is there a smarter way?

• A Grasshopper Reflects

Q: If directly challenging the university doesn't help, what’s a better approach?

• Part of the World: Fractals of Ethics - A Drama in Three Acts

Q: What happens if the university tries to shut you or your projects down?

• Tit-for-Tat Strategy

How Power Actually Works at a Public University

• buffers
• the Chancellor resigned

Q: Do rules have exceptions?

• The UIUC Talkshow

Q: What are the standard red tape tricks?

• Simple Sabotage Field Manual

Q: What is bureaucracy? And why does it even exist?

• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• The Trial
• The Castle

Chapter 21: University Suppression

21.2 IllinEats

• IllinEats

21.3 Stuart Umpleby

• The Friendly Orange Glow: The Untold Story of the PLATO System and the Dawn of Cyberculture
• interview with the author
• Watergate Was the World’s First Hashtag
• The Grad Student Who Dared Nixon: How a 1973 Online Forum Shook the University of Illinois
• My Interview with Stuart Umpleby
• Stuart Umpleby

PART 1: The Curiosity Question

• "most interesting professor" question
• friend

PART 2: How to Impress Any Girl

• that’s what I did
• people wizard friend
• Quad Day
• running a marathon
• selling boba
• Curiosity @ Illinois

PART 3: Over 500,000 Views

• https://youtu.be/wiqjGRVD_pE
• Curiosity @ Illinois
• Reddit

PART 4: Bureaucracy Strikes Again

• Cornell
• Berkeley
• UMichigan

PART 5: Power To The Students By The Students

• fuck clubs and work projects

21.5 The Speaker The University Didn't Want Me to Invite

• The Fountainhead
• Atlas Shrugged
• 1
• 2
• 3

PART 2: The Night Before My Differential Equations Final Exam

• here

PART 4: The Email

• The Seven Storey Mountain

PART 5: January 9th

• @XNews
• @elonmusk
• videos

21.7 Quietly Killing Creativity: How Universities Suppress Student Innovation

• student
• elsewhere
• happened
• excitement

Chapter 22: A Vision for The University

• The Art of Doing Science and Engineering

2.1 Faculty Must Lead

• Simple Sabotage Field Manual

2.5 Trust Faculty

• Three Professors and a $24 Million Miracle

5. The University is Clay

• An Illini Century: One Hundred Years of Campus Life

3.5 Teach Worlds, Not Skills

• Towers of Knowledge Have No Foundations

3.6 No Grades: Measure Progress, Not Points

• The Illini

3.7 Professors Should Be Better Than Snowmen

• The New 95

3.8 Teach the Big Problems First

• Towers of knowledge have no foundations

The Feynman Method

• Ten Lessons I Wish I Had Been Taught

Huffman and the Exam

• A Man for All Markets

3.12 Professors as Performers, Magicians, and Inspirers

• Cybernetics of Cybernetics Interview Notes
• The Idea of a Professor as a Performer

4.5 A Place for Students to Publish Their Work

• Although of course you end up becoming yourself

4.11 Curiosity Open Houses

• EOH

Make Building the Impossible Normal

• gap semester
• Spend a whole year creating a project you care about and present it then.

Bring in People Who Expand Imagination

• The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley

What a Modern Reinvention Should Do

• Designing Society

Make Life More Interesting

• Unit One History
• The Zen of Unit One: Residential Learning Communities as a Way to Foster Liberal Learning at Large Universities
• Designing Society
• Cybernetics of Cybernetics Interview Notes

6.1 End the LMS Trap

• Create an alternative.

8.3 Fix the IRB

• Tuskegee

Chapter 23: University Philanthropy

Learn From Tony Stark

• Tony Stark

A university is the continuous arrival of young people

• A Man for All Markets

PART 7: Becoming

Chapter 24: Becoming a Person (Not a Student)

24.5 College is Extremely Risky

• Take the right kind of risk.

24.11 The Illusion of College as an Accomplishment

• Sign of the Times

A Quick Story

• debate club
• grandpa
• What Is It Like Being a Crazy Motivated High School Kid?
• The Reality Club

24.14 Don’t Be Limited By Your Major

• Try Everything.

24.18 At UIUC, You Get To Know The Middle

• "What's your major?"
• The Curmudgeon's Guide to Getting Ahead: Dos and Don'ts of Right Behavior, Tough Thinking, Clear Writing, and Living a Good Life

24.25 Say Good Morning!!!

• literally

24.28 Call Your Parents (and High School Friends)

• “People are surprisingly hesitant to reach out to old friends”

24.35 Email Your Way To Anything

• Ask - Steve Jobs

24.36 Create a Weekly Review

• Ben Kuhn’s method
• mine

24.42 Share Your Ideas Online

• pseudonym

24.44 Learn an Instrument

• UIUCFreePianos
• “The greatest therapy in the world is to play music and tell yourself, ‘I am not a piece of shit.’”

24.45 Make Working on Cool Projects and Doing Things Because You Want to Common Knowledge

• Common Knowledge and Aumann’s Agreement Theorem

24.46 Learn From The Past

• website
• here

24.47 Don’t Worry (Too Much) About The Future

• Martin Gruebele

24.48 Stay on Campus During the Summer!

• week by week
• Lithium

24.51 Why You Should Probably Take a Gap Year

• gap semester
• he had built a working prototype
• the progress he made
• reflection
• Advice on Taking a Gap Year
• Great Year for a Gap Year
• Listen to Jake reflect on his story and gap years.
• Coming Full Circle

24.55 Sell Boba or Anything For a Day.

• selling boba

24.56 Make Videos or Short Films With Your Friends

• story
• watch the short film

24.57 Why I Never Started an RSO (And Why You Probably Shouldn’t)

• The UIUC Talkshow
• Quad Day
• Relations Between Student Groups and the University Suck

24.60 University = Universe

• Handbook of Spiritual Counsels

24.62 Don’t Be a Reminiscent S.O.B at the End of College

• The Endless Reminiscence of Your College Days

24.63 Do What Makes The Most Interesting Story

• marathons
• comedy
• guitar
• Auditioning for an a cappella group even though I don’t know how to sing,
• Doing a piano recital despite not playing very well.

24.64 College Isn’t Like Those Stupid Movies—It’s Better

• watch the 90-second clip

24.66 The Intensity of Innocence in Child’s Play

• Récoltes et Semailles

24.67 You’re Not The Only One

• Steppenwolf

Chapter 25: Things You Can Do With Your Life

• podcast
• Move to Finland and become an elf in a Christmas theater

More Money. Less Courage.

• finance, tech, and consulting
• The Decline of Deviance

A New Game By A Different Name

• Liar's Poker

What I Did After I Graduated from College

• essay
• Marie Arana’s book
• what-ifs.

Interesting Paths

• A Man for All Markets
• here's the story

Chapter 26: walking on a college campus

5

• The Endless Reminiscence of Your College Days

22

• Spend a whole year creating a project you care about and present it then.

28

• Anthony Leggett

33

• Auditioning for an a cappella group even though I don’t know how to sing,

53

• https://juandavidcampolargo.com/newsletter

Chapter 27: Timeline of Juan David Campolargo

2020

• What Is It Like Being a Crazy Motivated High School Kid?
• UIUC Undergraduate Research Program Advice

2021

• Geoffrey Challen
• Profitable Affordable Housing
• The Order of Time
• QR Code generator

2022

• The UIUC Talkshow
• UIUCFreeFood
• Personal Flying Vehicle
• one time
• Interviewed by local news
• Homecoming Parade
• FuckGenEds
• Vertical Landing Rocket

2023

• Buckminster Fuller obsession
• gap semester
• San Francisco
• Miami Tech Week
• Chronicles of the Future
• College Boba: How My Friends and I Made $74.35 in Profit Selling Boba on a $46 Budget
• UIUC alumni magazine
• another time
• marathons
• story
• guitar

2024

• drops disciplinary charges
• a cappella group.
• Illini Memories
• UIUCFreePianos

PART 8: Suggested Reading

• /jailbroken
• juandavidcampolargo.com

Books

• How to Win in College
• Hacking College
• The Fountainhead
• Excellent Sheep
• online
• Deschooling Society
• Elon Musk
• A Man for All Markets
• The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
• notes
• Atlas Shrugged
• Jonathan Livingston Seagull
• Steve Jobs
• Leonardo da Vinci
• Benjamin Franklin
• The Man Who Knew Infinity
• From Counterculture to Cyberculture
• The Engines of Our Ingenuity
• The Motern Method
• Man’s Search for Meaning
• The Alchemist
• Steppenwolf
• Siddhartha
• Narcissus and Goldmund
• Demian
• The Glass Bead Game
• The Seven Storey Mountain
• The Culture of Narcissism

Essays

• College advice for people who are exactly like me
• My Weekly Review Habit
• See my version
• Doing well in your courses
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to College
• How to make the most of college
• Undergraduation
• More Advice for Undergrads
• What advice do I give to my students?
• 17-20: a Retrospective on Four Years in College
• College Q&A
• Fury and Freedom: Four Years at Amherst College
• What I Wish I Knew in College
• freshman
• 2023. Reflections and Updates
• The Grand Unveil
• Although of course you end up becoming yourself
• The Parties I Chased and the Quiet I Needed
• The Disadvantages of an Elite Education
• The Organization Kid
• Elite Disillusionment
• Ivy League Exodus
• The Value of College
• Why I Left Academia (Since You're Wondering)
• “Yay, College!” Part 1: The Smiley-Face Super-Villainy of American Higher Education
• The Entrepreneurial Generation
• Dressing Up
• On the Life We Come Here to Find: A Convocation Address
• How have you spent your tuition dollars?
• Relations Between Student Groups and the University Suck
• How the UIUC Department of Aerospace Engineering has Failed Its Students, and What it Can Do About It
• minefield
• Things You’re Allowed to Do: University Edition
• The combinatorial space of possible transcripts (i.e., take unusual classes)
• Mind Over Major: The case for using college to become more interesting
• Escaping High School
• Towers of knowledge have no foundations
• reflection
• Buy a house on the campus of my old university and take classes there for the rest of my life
• The New 95
• Levels.io
• What I would do if I was 18 now
• OUR ENGINEERING STUDENTS are technically brilliant. They’re going to be fantastically successful in what they do. But can they reflect? I’m afraid that we’re getting them to think too much and do too much, but feel too little, imagine too little, intuit too little
• Advice for ambitious 19 year olds
• Advice for ambitious teenagers
• Advice for ambitious Stanford students
• Advice for ambitious Stanford students interested in startups
• Interviews with current and former ambitious Stanford students: “What you’ll wish you’d known”
• A Student’s Guide to Startups
• What I Worked On
• story
• Why Side Projects Matter More Than a Perfect GPA: The Magic of Working on Your Own Projects (And a Mark Zuckerberg Story)
• why i dropped out of college
• How I premiered my short film at 22
• inner rings
• Self-Reliance
• The Lesson to Unlearn
• Speech at Palo Alto High School
• The Hacker Manifesto
• Jailbreaking the Simulation
• The Cook and the Chef
• Blasphemy
• Breaking Addiction Is Socially Unacceptable
• You and Your Research
• How To Be Successful
• Are you serious?
• Surely you can be serious
• Advice
• Inventing on Principle
• Do What Makes The Best Story
• No yes. Either HELL YEAH! or no
• Ten Lessons I Wish I Had Been Taught
• The Tinkerings of Robert Noyce
• Ask - Steve Jobs
• No Smarter Than You
• How to Pick a Career (That Actually Fits You)
• How To Do What You Love
• What You’ll Wish You’d Known
• The Trouble with Optionality
• The days are long but the decades are short
• How to Spend Your Twenties
• The Curmudgeon's Guide to Getting Ahead
• Bluebooking for happiness
• Dear Graduates ...
• “quit your job and become the wild and ambitious elites you wish to see in the world. Live by instinct in the untracked frontier, shoot your shot, and live or die by your intuitive visions of what must be done. You can carry out your cosmic duty and win glory only in the bold attempt.”
• There's a place for everyone
• This is Water
• Learning in War-Time
• Everyone is numbing out
• The Tail End
• The New Illiteracy
• Becoming a magician
• How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
• Theory of Change
• 1,000 True Fans
• 1,000 True Fans? Try 100
• This also applies in other areas beyond parking.
• Commencement Address
• 1999 Commencement Address at Agnes Scott College
• Source
• All this is worth it right? FUCK NO YOU IDIOT

My Essays

• How to College: Advice, Mistakes, and Thoughts
• The College Manifesto
• "What's your major?"
• Don’t Network. Make Friends.
• Say’s Law for Your Curiosity
• that’s what I did
• Quad Day 2022
• The Endless Reminiscence of Your College Days
• Giving Up Optionality: Updating 2020
• Patience & Faith: Updating 2021
• Curious & Obsessive Experimentation: Updating 2022
• What Is It Like Being a Crazy Motivated High School Kid?
• belonging
• A professor tells me to switch majors out of fury
• A professor tells me to drop out
• A professor tells me to do something else and does not allow me to come to class
• How To Think for Yourself in College
• A Step into the Future: A Visit to the Fuller Dome House and the Unfolding Legacy of Buckminster Fuller
• The UIUC Talkshow Purpose & Meeting Wolfram (and Taleb)
• story
• Auditioning for an a cappella group even though I don’t know how to sing,
• guitar
• What I Learned From Running My First Marathon
• What I Learned From Doing Stand-up Comedy
• College Boba: How My Friends and I Made $74.35 in Profit Selling Boba on a $46 Budget
• Pico Masala
• How to Become the Mayor of a City, a Governor, the U.S. President, or Another Major Politician
• How to Cure Cancer, Fix the Climate, Build a Billion-Dollar Company, and Win a Nobel Prize
• Sonny Hayes as The Ultimate Jailbroken Character
• Curiosity is Love
• Eat The World Vs. Eaten by The World
• The Steppenwolf's Guide to Laughing at Life's Distortions
• We All Walk Past This Lady But She Has the Most Important Job at UIUC: PART 1
• We All Walk Past This Lady But She Has the Most Important Job at UIUC: PART 2

III. UIUC

• online
• Internet Archive
• Internet Archive interactive reader format
• library
• An Illini Place: Building the University of Illinois Campus
• supplemental materials
• Illini Years 1868-1950: A Picture History of the University of Illinois
• Some founding papers of the University of Illinois
• A Brief History of the University of Illinois
• Report of the Centennial Year of the University of Illinois [February 28, 1967, to March 11, 1968]
• No Boundaries: University of Illinois Vignettes
• Voices from the 1960s: Reflections from UIUC Alumni of 1968–1972
• Radicals in the Heartland: The 1960s Student Protest Movement at the University of Illinois
• interesting playlist.
• The University of Illinois: Engine of Innovation
• The Friendly Orange Glow: The Untold Story of the PLATO System and the Dawn of Cyberculture
• available online, check them out.
• The History of the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology

Movies

• story
• golden hour x UIUC (college edition)

Appendix A — The Ultimate Campus Adventure

• email

Appendix B — Jailbroken People

Paul Schroeder

• Happy Acres Hall
• he’s actively worked in his home state of Maine

How I Met Him

• Juan David’s Website
• The UIUC Talkshow
• The UIUCFreeFood
• A Step into the Future: A Visit to the Fuller Dome House and the Unfolding Legacy of Buckminster Fuller
• Whole University Catalog

Badass Moment

• Source

Advice to Young People

• Oral History Interview, 2019

Most Cherished Memory

• March 28th, 2023

Learn more

• Source
• March 28th, 2023
• Paul Schroeder Oral History Interview - 10/3/2019
• To the University, with Love
• summary I wrote.
• Voices from the 1960s: Reflections from UIUC Alumni of 1968–1972

Heinz von Foerster

World War II

• Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.

Postwar Years

• Man’s Search for Meaning

What I Took Away

• Cybernetics of Cybernetics Interview Notes

Master of the Invisible Game: Understanding Systems

• Remembrances. Human Becoming. Becoming Human, the online Festschrift for Heinz von Foerster (2001)
• Part of the World: Fractals of Ethics - A Drama in Three Acts

Badass Moment

• Part of the World: Fractals of Ethics - A Drama in Three Acts

How Heinz von Foerster Met His Wife

• Part of the World: Fractals of Ethics - A Drama in Three Acts

Learn more

• Warren S. McCulloch
• Norbert Wiener
• Interview with Heinz von Foerster (1995)
• Heinz von Foerster Wikipedia Page
• Heinz von Foerster
• Heuristics: A Report on a Course on Knowledge Acquisition by Heinz von Foerster and Herbert Brün
• Of Phantom Limbs and Foreign Bodies: Reentering the BCL
• “Nerve center” of the cybernetic world Heinz von Foerster and the Biological Computer Laboratory
• The Biological Computer Laboratory (BCL) Website
• more background on how the Whole University Catalog came to be.
• The full story of the BCL and Heinz von Foerster’s time at the University of Illinois
• Full book
• Vishu Da King
• First few pages.
• The first page
• Designing Society
• Heinz von Foerster and the Biological Computer Laboratory: A Cybernetics Odyssey
• On Constructing Reality
• Heinz von Foerster and the Bio-Computing Movements of the 1960s
• A Brief History of the BCL
• Part of the World: Fractals of Ethics - A Drama in Three Acts
• Kybernetik in Urbana
• The Collected Works of The Biological Computer Laboratory
• Cybernetics of Cybernetics Interview Notes
• Ricardo Uribe on Paradoxes on Non-Trivial Machines
• here
• Responsibilities of Competence
• The Cybernetics Thought Collective
• Human Becoming. Becoming Human, the online Festschrift for Heinz von Foerster (2001)
• A Grasshopper Reflects
• Bob Zielinski’s essay “A Personal Story of My Encounter With Heinz von Foerster“ in Human Becoming. Becoming Human, the online Festschrift for Heinz von Foerster (2001)
• Heinz von Foerster, the scientist, the man
• The Heinz von Foerster Page
• Heinz von Foerster, 90, Dies; Was Information Theorist
• Stuart Umpleby Profile
• The Beginning of Heaven and Earth Has No Name
• Heinz von Foerster - Correspondence, 1948-1968

Carl Woese

• The Art of Yellowstone Science - Mammoth Hot Springs as a Window on the Universe.

How Carl Woese Changed Biology

• According to Nigel Goldenfeld
• On the Origin of Species

Great Science = Nobel Prize?

• Memories of Carl from an improbable friend
• Die frühe Evolution war chaotisch

What Carl Woese Hated The Most

• Memories of Carl from an improbable friend

On Darwin

• On the evolution of cells
• Biology's Next Revolution
• Evolution Scientist Carl Woese Dies: 'The Most Important Evolution Scientist of the 20th Century'
• Q&A
• "all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form...“
• Die frühe Evolution war chaotisch
• Think of the reader and you will write your best
• Q&A

God, Evolution, and Carl Woese’s Hidden Spirituality

• Memories of Carl from an improbable friend
• Evolution Scientist Carl Woese Dies: 'The Most Important Evolution Scientist of the 20th Century'
• Richard von Sternberg
• Carl Woese, email to Douglas Theobald (archived)
• A New Biology for a New Century
• Carl Woese, quoted by Douglas Theobald and Evan Ratliff

The Protocell Controversy: Playing God in the Lab?

• Evolution Scientist Carl Woese Dies: 'The Most Important Evolution Scientist of the 20th Century'
• The Character of Physical Law

Advice to the Curious: Serendipity, Science, and The Road Less Published

• Carl Woese in Schenectady: The forgotten years
• Ten lessons with Carl Woese about RNA and comparative analysis
• Think of the reader and you will write your best
• Carl Woese Memorial

Advice to Future Biologists: Don’t Start with Biology

• Q&A
• The Scientist Who Scrambled Darwin’s Tree of Life

How Carl Woese Changed People's Lives

• Looking in the Right Direction: Carl Woese and Evolutionary Biology"

Why Become a Scientist?

• Q&A

Music & Science

• Secondary structure adventures with Carl Woese

Did Carl Woese Know Heinz von Foerster?

• here they are!
• 2011 Edge article,

Learn more

• The Art of Yellowstone Science - Mammoth Hot Springs as a Window on the Universe
• here
• Carl Woese Wikipedia Page
• The Man Who Rewrote the Tree of Life
• The kingdoms of Carl Woese
• Darwin's Disciple
• Special Issue: Carl Woese. RNA Biology, Volume 11, Issue 3 (2014)
• Carl Woese in Schenectady: The forgotten years
• And the winner should be...
• Looking in the Right Direction: Carl Woese and Evolutionary Biology"
• Memories of Carl from an improbable friend
• Think of the reader and you will write your best
• A tale of Woese
• In Memoriam: Abigail Salyers
• 100 Greatest Discoveries By Bill Nye: Biology (Carl Woese Feature)
• RIP Carl Woese: Collecting posts / notes / other information about my main science hero here
• Microbial Life's Steadfast Champion
• Evolution Scientist Carl Woese Dies: 'The Most Important Evolution Scientist of the 20th Century'
• Scientists Discover a Form of Life That Predates Higher Organisms
• Notes from a talk by Carl Woese in 1993
• A New Biology for a New Century
• Following Carl Woese into the Natural Microbial World — The Beginnings of Metagenomics
• In Memoriam Carl Woese
• Microbial Biology: Microbiology's Scarred Revolutionary
• Phylogeny and beyond: Scientific, historical, and conceptual significance of the first tree of life
• Die frühe Evolution war chaotisch
• The Scientist Who Scrambled Darwin’s Tree of Life
• The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life
• Q&A
• Darwin among the machines
• The Birth of the Archaea: a Personal Retrospective
• 2011 Edge article,
• A Sad Post: RIP Carl Woese!
• The Scientific Inquiry of Carl Woese
• Carl Woese and the Beginnings of Metagenomics - Prof. Norman Pace, University of Colorado Boulder
• Carl Woese: Still ahead of our time

Arnold Beckman

When Do Inventions Happen?

• Beckman.com

Learn more

• Arnold O. Beckman: One Hundred Years of Excellence
• Arnold Beckman: Chemist, Inventor, Philanthropist
• Arnold O. Beckman (1900–2004), interviewed by Mary Terrall, October 16–December 4, 1978. Oral History, Caltech Archives.
• Looking Back at Arnold Beckman
• Watch free on Pluto.tv
• Trailer
• Abbreviated version
• History of The Beckman Institute

Rajmohan Gandhi

Learn more

• Rajmohan Gandhi’s Wikipedia Page
• Rajmohan Gandhi’s Personal Website

Richard Hamming

• You and Your Research

Learn more

• You and Your Research
• The Art of Doing Science and Engineering
• Read the last chapter first.
• Richard Hamming’s Wikipedia Page

More Interesting People

• Lincoln Academy 2001 Interview Roger Ebert
• here
• here
• University of Illinois | 150 Years & Beyond website
• spreadsheet

Keith Schacht

Short bio

• hundreds of millions
• Inventables
• Mystery Doug
• Mystery Science
• sale to Discovery Education
• speaking at TED
• The Explanation Company
• Keith Schacht’s Blog

Favorite Book

• Atlas Shrugged

See Classes as a Menu in a Restaurant

• Sonny Hayes as The Ultimate Jailbroken Character

How to Not Take Required Classes (or Other Classes You Don’t Want)

• Behind door #4
• A professor tells me to drop out

The Infinite Combinations Principle

• Inside ARU: Philosophy and Work
• Discovering Your Passion, Creating a Career

How Do You Actually Find What You Love?

• Discovering Your Passion, Creating a Career

How to Get Free Interns For Your Startup?

• Discovering Your Passion, Creating a Career

What I Took Away

• “I want" vs "I should"
• Future Selves

Learn more:

• Keith Schacht’s Blog
• Keith Schacht’s YouTube
• Keith Schacht’s Instagram
• Keith Schacht’s Wikipedia Page
• Discovering Your Passion, Creating a Career
• Behind door #4
• Being intentional vs acting out of habit

Cory Levy

Badass Moment: Dropping Condoms from a Drone on School Property

• here
• here

Do Cool Shit. It’s Ok—People Forget.

• FuckGenEds.com
• FuckGenEds.com

Learn more:

• Cory Levy’s Website
• 650-505-9984
• Cory Levy’s X
• First Text with Cory Levy Podcast

Vinay Hiremath

• I encourage you to read his essay yourself.

Why Is UIUC So Thirsty???

• Original tweet.

Learn more:

• Vinay Hiremath’s Website
• I encourage you to read his essay yourself.
• Startup, College, & Tech Advice From Loom's Co-Founder

PayPal Mafia

• Me at the Zoo

4. Break Free From "Shoulds" — Luke Nosek

• The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley

Jailbroken Hacks

• The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley

Favorite Books

• The Fountainhead
• The Road to Serfdom
• The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley
• The Fountainhead

Take Classes Outside of Your Major

• The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley

Hide In Your Girlfriend’s Bathroom

• The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley
• UIUC's 2018 Commencement Address

Alcohol & Bars

• Fireside Chat with Max Levchin

Don’t Take Entrepreneurship Classes!

• Fireside Chat with Max Levchin

Learn more:

• r | p 2006: YouTube: From Concept to Hypergrowth - Jawed Karim
• How YouTube Was Created ft. Founder Steve Chen
• Interview with Max Levchin, Paypal | BBC Studios
• Jawed Karim, Commencement Address, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, May 13, 2007.
• Why Yelp’s CEO Turned Down Google
• 2018 Illinois commencement speaker Max Levchin’s address
• Max Levchin | UIUC's 2018 Commencement Address
• Max Levchin: The Making of a Tech Mogul
• Maximum Impact: Max Levchin on lessons from his grandmother, late nights at DCL, and building businesses with integrity
• Department of Computer Science. Alumni News. Vol. 2, no. 4, Jan. 2001, pp. 8, 17.
• The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley
• Fireside Chat with Max Levchin

Scott Banister

College is Just Another System to Hack

• The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley

Everyone's Vocation is Business

• The Education of Millionaires: It's Not What You Think and It's Not Too Late

Learn more:

• The Education of Millionaires: It's Not What You Think and It's Not Too Late
• "Date Night" with Cyan Banister (Investor) and Scott Banister (Founder of IronPort)
• Scott Banister’s Wikipedia Page
• Domain-Name Hunter Practices Corporate Charity

Mosaic: Marc Andreessen & Eric Bina

Be Careful With The University (and win anyway)

• here
• here
• here
• here

What Happened to Eric Bina? (aka: The Quiet-Builder Path You Can Choose)

• email

Then why don’t we hear about him like we hear about Marc?

• 1995 Newsweek profile
• rare interview

Did he stay in the Valley forever?

• Popular Mechanics

Learn more:

• here
• here
• here
• here
• Internet Pioneers: Marc Andreesen
• The Tinkerings of Robert Noyce
• rare interview
• 1995 Newsweek profile
• The Netscape Mosaic Coup
• Popular Mechanics
• Remembering Netscape: The Birth Of The Web
• NCSA Mosaic’s Wikipedia
• Mosaic in the rear view
• Compilation
• The PMarca Blog Archives

Larry Ellison

• reminisce
• UIUC

Steve Sarowitz

Learn more:

• Steve Sarowitz’s Wikipedia Page

Carmen Rossi

• UIUC Talkshow

Carmen’s Secret Business Formula

• UIUC Talkshow

Jailbroken Hack: Show Up to Class Early. It’s a Gold Mine for Business Ideas.

• UIUC Talkshow

What College is For (According to Carmen)

• UIUC Talkshow

Don’t Focus on Product. Focus on People

• UIUC Talkshow

How to Hire People (or Your Friends): Sell the Win, Not the Work

• UIUC Talkshow

Amplify, Don't Create

• UIUC Talkshow

Free Business Idea You Can Steal and Start Making Money Today

• UIUC Talkshow
• email

Best Places to Take Someone on a Date

• UIUC Talkshow

Advice to Young People: Understand The Law of Large Numbers

• UIUC Talkshow

Learn More:

• Carmen Rossi’s Instagram
• UIUC Talkshow

Anatoly Yakovenko

Go Uphill

• ANATOLY YAKOVENKO

Learn more:

• ANATOLY YAKOVENKO
• Anatoly Yakovenko’s X
• Anatoly Yakovenko’s LinkedIn
• Solana’s Wikipedia

Michael Krasny

• I even asked a question.
• UIUC Billionaire Tells Business Students (in front of Larry Gies) To Transfer to Computer Science or Engineering

Learn More

• UIUC Billionaire Tells Business Students (in front of Larry Gies) To Transfer to Computer Science or Engineering
• Michael Krasny’s Wikipedia
• V. Dale Cozad Lecture on Entrepreneurship

Thomas Siebel

• The UIUC Talkshow

Who is Tom Siebel?

• C3.ai

What I Admire About Him

• UI's new Siebel Center for Design: 'I think it's for everybody'

Jailbroken Hack: Become a Cowboy

• Lincoln Academy 2008 Interview Tom Siebel

Learn More:

• The UIUC Talkshow
• Chronicles of the Future
• Curiosity @ Illinois
• Tom Siebel’s 2006 Illinois commencement speech

Hugh Hefner

• cartoons

Learn more:

• Hugh Hefner’s Wikipedia
• Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Enterprises, Inc Profile
• Mr. Playboy: Hugh Hefner and the American Dream
• Hef's Little Black Book
• Hugh Hefner Profile
• From Illinois to Playboy: Remembering Hugh Hefner
• Miles Davis: a candid conversation with the jazz world's premier iconoclast (1962)
• Steven Jobs: a candid conversation about making computers, making mistakes, and making millions with the young entrepreneur who sparked a business idea (1985)
• Martin Luther King: a candid conversation with the nobel-prize winning leader of the civil right movements.
• The Playboy Interview: Malcolm X (1963)
• Ayn Rand (1964)

Alex Wang

• Jolim

Learn more:

• Alexander Wang - EP 1 - UIUC Discovery
• Beautiful People ft. Alex (Official Music Video)
• Instagram
• LinkedIn

Christopher Xu

• gap semester
• Vertical Landing Rocket

Learn more:

• The Robotic Squirrel Project
• Illini Voyager Project
• X
• LinkedIn
• Writing
• gap semester
• Towers of knowledge have no foundations
• reflection
• story

Ian Brown

• How have you spent your tuition dollars?
• warp drive

Learn more:

• LinkedIn
• Rocket Philosophy

Aaryaman Patel

• Sign of the Times
• The UIUC Talkshow

Learn more:

• Aaryaman’s Website
• Aaryaman Patel’s YouTube
• Aaryaman Patel’s LinkedIn
• Aaryaman Patel’s X
• Aaryaman Patel’s Instagram

Luke Clancy

Learn more:

• The Jam Session Manifesto
• The Jam Session Manifesto
• Luke Clancy’s Website
• Luke Clancy’s LinkedIn

Dylan Murphy

• why i dropped out of college
• student paper covers it
• big snowball fight

Learn more:

• Dylan Murphy’s YouTube
• Dylan Murphy’s Instagram
• Dylan Murphy’s Website
• why i dropped out of college
• How I premiered my short film at 22
• 784 Miles
• I threw the biggest party in the world
• Le Quad: a restaurant on The Quad

And You?

• Inner Ring

Appendix C — Narratives

INSTITUTION DOES NOT MEAN = NEVER CHANGE

• derives
• Although of course you end up becoming yourself

International Students, or How the University Becomes the Universe

• source

Total Enrollment Over Time (1867 → 2025)

• University Library
• pb.uillinois.edu

UIUC “bought COVID insurance” before COVID

• Three Professors and a $24 Million Miracle
• http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5040229
• https://ssrn.com/abstract=5040229
• Illinois' Chinese Revenue Hedge: The Backstory of the University of Illinois's Successful Insurance Program by Jeffrey R. Brown, Morton Lane, and Andrew Martin

Narratives that are fake

“College is Just a Pipeline to Corporate America”

• Watch the UIUC Talkshow conversation we had with Geoffrey Challen. It was one of the best episodes ever.

The Engineering Trap

• make you rich, famous, or happy
• OUR ENGINEERING STUDENTS are technically brilliant. They’re going to be fantastically successful in what they do. But can they reflect? I’m afraid that we’re getting them to think too much and do too much, but feel too little, imagine too little, intuit too little
• mass-producing men with technical competence and humanistic ignorance

2. “Engineering guarantees wealth, fame, and success”

• Save yourself.

How UIUC Has Changed

1. Purdue’s Colors

• 1895 Illio yearbook

2. What was UIUC like?

• “memory and pixels were very expensive.”
• YouTube videos

UIUC Engineers Run The Valley

• The Tinkerings of Robert Noyce

The Midwest Engineer Anthem

• The Midwest Engineer Anthem.

ALUMNI BRAGGING

• Although of course you end up becoming yourself

Appendix D — How to Succeed as an International Student

3. Examples of What’s Possible

Arya Haria – How to Maximize Your Time as an International Student (and eating a raw potato for luck)

• LinkedIn

Aaryaman Patel — How to Learn to Follow Your Intuition

• The UIUC Talkshow
• what-ifs.

4. After College

• Juan David’s Website

Know What Grad School Is Really About: becoming a professor.

• At 90, Freeman Dyson Ponders His Next Challenge

2. After OPT, what’s next?

• super cool guy made all his application documents available

Appendix E — How to Make, Save, and Invest Money in College

2. Opt-Out of the School’s Health Insurance

• here
• here

7. The Pull-Out Method

• Yes, it’s true.

13. How Does the Credit System Work?

• AnnualCreditReport.com

Appendix F — Entrepreneurship

1. Should You Become an Entrepreneur in College?

• Mark Zuckerberg at Startup School 2012
• FuckGenEds.com

4. How to Learn Entrepreneurship

• How to Start a Startup
• Startup Playbook
• CS183: Startup
• Paul Graham Essays
• Website
• The PMarca Blog Archives

9. Take ZERO Entrepreneurship Classes

• Fireside Chat with Max Levchin

10. How to Fix Entrepreneurship at Universities: A Modest Proposal

• The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

12. What Businesses Can You Start in College?

• UIUC Talkshow

Appendix G — Midwest Mentality

Midwest Mentality as a Hidden Advantage

• The Tinkerings of Robert Noyce
• Marc Andreessen on Learning to Love the Humanities (Ep. 152), Conversations with Tyler

Read with the sources openCheck the trail. Then read the argument.

The notes show where the claims, campus histories, examples, and source trails came from. The book gives those references their order and argument.

Buy the book See suggested reading