In this candid, first‑person video, Edmund Zheng – a 24‑year‑old Yale graduate – shares a roadmap for making the most of an education at a top‑five U.S. university. He urges incoming students to adopt an "explore, explore, explore" mindset in their freshman year, joining a wide array of clubs and auditing classes, and to proactively reach out to professors and attend office hours. Zheng explains how this breadth of experience cultivates confidence and the ability to ignore others' judgments, which in turn fuels further exploration. He highlights the long‑term value of building intuition and flow through diverse activities, arguing that these soft skills pay dividends far beyond the résumé. A major recommendation is to study abroad for a semester (he cites his own experience in Spain and the Erasmus program) as a fast‑track to cultural immersion, language acquisition, and expanded perspective. He also advises students to be selective about friendships, favoring people who genuinely celebrate each other's successes. Zheng tackles imposter syndrome, contrasting a high‑achievement, external‑validation route (prestigious internships, elite graduate schools) with an internal‑voice approach that follows personal passion and intuition—a path that helped him discover his purpose as a professional hypnotist. Finally, he challenges the notion that admission to an elite school is the pinnacle of achievement, urging students to envision a life purpose that will make their college accolade feel modest in hindsight. He closes with an invitation to email him with questions, positioning his advice as a data point for future students navigating the elite‑college bubble.
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Alright, I wasn't going to make this video, but I've just had a lot of notes coming around because I've talked with multiple people on LinkedIn now who are past, present, and future students of a HPSUM university, the top 5 universities in the US. And so, uh, who's this guy you're looking at on the screen right now? So I'm Edmund Zheng, I'm 24 years old. I was Yale class of 2024. I grew up in Oklahoma. I went to public school and my dream school was never really HPSUM or anything. I never really dreamed that high, but it ended up happening. And having found my life purpose at 24 and talking with all these people who are going through Yale and like all these sorts of different things, I thought I would make a video because I have all these like little notes of how exactly you should make the most of attending a top 5 university. Okay, I think the number 1 thing you have to do: explore, explore, explore. Whatever major you applied to, you know how you put in the Common App like, I want to do this major. Throw it all away when freshman year starts. Literally apply to every single club possible. If you hear a friend, they say this is interesting, just go for it because freshman year no one cares. And honestly, like, I applied to maybe 20, 30 clubs. And I'm telling you to do this because freshman year, I just want you to know that, if I can read here, like, you need to know that freshman year, your will to like excel to explore things and like try new things, it's limited. Like, because you're 18 years old probably by the time you're watching this. When you get to like senior year, when you're 22, you just feel so much sort of resistance to trying new things. And this is just a natural thing of life, right? As humans, we grow and you just kind of lose that spark a little. And so when you're a freshman, I plead you, take as much advantage of that as you can. So there's that. But then, but then there's another huge benefit you get from exploring, from doing all these clubs, and that is you gain this innate ability to not give a shit about what others think of you. Okay, this— if you explore more, you gain more the ability to not care about what others think of you. And if you don't care about what others think of you,, you will feel more confident exploring. So you see how it's this sort of cycle. But this all starts with your freshman year. I— it took me a while until sophomore year to really, really take advantage of this. But freshman year, that's the time you need to be exploring, exploring, exploring. I know you wrote in your application like, oh, I'm going to do these clubs and I'm going to do these classes. Yes, of course, do them. But do your due diligence. I know you're hanging out the summer. It's a good time. Literally spend like one afternoon, go down the entire class catalog, look at every class. Seriously, look at every class. And by the way, like, you can gamify this whole class thing. Even though it says there's a prerequisite, email them if you're that interested, because I got in a few classes by just doing this. Email your freaking professor. Email them and be like, hey, like, I'm just a curious freshman. Rules are, in many cases in these top 5 schools, they are meant to be broken. And if you show passion and you really have a genuine interest, professors will take you on and you will have some of the most beautiful classes of your life because of this. Also, another point about classes and professors in general, just know that no matter how accomplished all these professors are, no matter how, like, much may accolades or whatever they have, At the end of the day, you got to realize they're all just other curious humans. They're just curious about the world just as you are. And they are so— like, what you got to realize, when these professors, they do office hours, they get so much joy and energy from just meeting, you know, like, for example, like, curious college students who have all these questions. And yeah, like, honestly, just sign up for as many office hours as you can. That's one of my biggest regrets from Yale because you're around so much talent and you're around so much mind and intellectualism and so many ideas. And that's really a golden opportunity. So really do your best and don't be intimidated. Reach out. Also, to paint a picture for you, 20 years down the road, 30 years down the road even, when you're like a working adult, you're going to hear two words more than you ever have in your entire life, more than you are right now. Those words are flow, and those words are intuition. These are human skills that anyone can learn, no matter where you come from, no matter what background you have. And again, part of this whole exploring mindset, part of you just figuring out, exploring what you like, figuring out what you like and don't like— these things, they build your intuition and they build your flow. And trust me, it's it doesn't sound important to you right now because it's not something that you can put on your resume. But just have in mind that you need to build your intuition and flow because those will pay dividends later in your life. One other actionable tip I'm gonna give you right now: study abroad, okay? This isn't to do like a— I'm not telling you do a study abroad with your school. Like at Yale, what happens a lot is a lot of students will study abroad, but they'll do like a Yale summer session. And so they'll only study abroad for like 6 to 8 weeks, and it's with a bunch of other Yalies. But what I highly, highly recommend is you actually study abroad for an entire semester, or even a year if you want. I think a semester is good. Junior spring was perfect for me. You should plan it for then. I did it in Spain. Spain is also a good recommendation. I'm happy to provide provide other recommendations. I thought Spain was great, but okay. Yeah, you want to know a great way to build your intuition? Study abroad. And I say this because what you're about to enter as a 17, 18-year-old, the world that you are about to enter is this crazy fanatical world that is so disconnected from the earth because you're around literally like some of the smartest, most intellectual, most agentic people. And this is such a special bubble. For better or worse, it is a bubble, and you have to realize that. But part of making the most of this bubble is actually leaving it for a semester. Trust me when I say this, most of the value I got I got from Yale and the relationships I got from Yale was because I studied abroad, because I was in that whole ecosystem for maybe 2 to 3, yeah, 2 to 3 years. And then junior spring, I just completely step aside. I study abroad at a program where I knew nobody in Spain. And then it's that time away and it gives you such a beautiful appreciation for everything that, in my case, Yale had to offer. And then I came back and it just helps you so much with the intuition thing and also just getting so much more value out of your college experience. Not only that, you have the ability to learn another language. Like, for example, because I speak Spanish, the entirety of Latin— the entirety and Portuguese, the entirety of Latin America, it's open to me. I can walk into any bar, I can walk into any coffee shop in Latin America or Spain and just shoot the shit with people and like make friends easily. Like the amount your world really opens, because I'm assuming for most of you, you've grown up in the US. Like I never left the country really until I was 20 years old. Your world just opens up so much. It's because it's one level when you study abroad, it is another level when you are literally by yourself, you know, you're not with this like Yale program, you're around people that are in this ecosystem with you, right? When you're by yourself, you're just exploring, it is the most beautiful thing ever. And yes, another actionable tip, if you go to Europe, if you go to an EU country, there is this program called Erasmus, which is basically the EU's like study abroad program for its college kids. And what it'll do, it'll fund them to go to another European country. As a result, in most European cities, there's like an Erasmus club, which is all these European students who are also studying abroad. Go to those events because you will be the only American there and you will learn just so much about Europe and about other cultures, and you will make these amazing, amazing friends and connections that will last you for a freaking lifetime. All goes to say, my number 1 tip for college, study abroad. Also, like a lot of videos, I'm sure you've looked on YouTube about like college, they talk about friends and making friends and all that. All that. To that I say, a lot of that's already been said on YouTube. The one thing I would add to that is just pay attention. Obviously freshman year and to an extent sophomore year are all about like meeting new people, making new friends, whatever. But especially as junior and senior year comes about, I think a good measure to figure out who, who you feel, who you feel yourself around is people that you can tell good news to and they will be 100% like happy for you. I think that is something that you should just pay attention to, starting especially junior and senior year, because what happens after senior year is you just don't, you just don't talk to everyone, right? After senior year, you end up talking to just a few people regularly, and you want to make sure that those few people are truly people that are rooting for you and You don't want to sleepwalk your friends is what I'm trying to say. Next, I want to talk about imposter syndrome, and I'm gonna be honest, it took me quite a while to get through imposter syndrome. The way I see it, there are two ways that you can get yourself out of that, right? The first way is if you brute force your way out of it. So that's by getting one of those MBB consulting jobs, uh, finance jobs in New York or go to like Harvard Med School, like one of those things. I think that's a very plausible way because then you're hypnotically reminding yourself because then you're like, oh, okay, so not only did I make it to Yale, but then I went to Harvard Med School. So, you know, I actually belong in this whole ecosystem, like I am here, right? So that's one way that you can get out of imposter syndrome. Now the second way that you can get out is the way I did it, which is by just listening to your intuition, not listening to the noise of people being like, okay, what internships are you applying? Oh, this is that, this is that. Have an ear out for that, of course. Like, it's important just to know what's happening on campus and what people are thinking as to internships and future jobs. But always, always, always just never forget about your inner voice. And of course, this is where intuition comes in, and this is why I'm I want to really, really emphasize the words intuition, intuition, intuition, because it is literally because study abroad was part of how I got rid of my imposter syndrome. Because I really— but like, once you're on your own path, it is impossible for you to feel like an imposter to someone else. That is why I can say, and now I'm a professional hypnotist and I absolutely love what I do. I found my life purpose. I'm 24. And which feels crazy, but it is because I went the other direction of imposter syndrome, which was just following your freaking passion. The last thing I want to touch on is senior year, I attended probably the most important talk I've ever went to in my life. I'm getting a little emotional thinking about it, but the guy speaking, he told this entire group of Yale seniors. He said, "Getting into Yale was probably the biggest accomplishment of your life, but is it going to be the biggest accomplishment of your life, right? Is the fact that you just got lucky maybe in the admissions or whatever, or you just happened to get into the school, is that going to be the most proud thing you've done in your entire life?" And so my final message to you, of course after post-grad is far from now, but You need to absolutely do everything with the plan of building a life where years down the road you can look back and confidently say to yourself that getting into Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, that doesn't even come close to the things that you are genuinely most proud of in your life, right? And all goes to show, right, like, you are about to enter this sphere, this bubble, whatever you want to call it. But don't forget, there is life, there is so much purpose, there's so much joy, there's so much fun to be had even after this college experience. Like, when I, when I think about Yale, 10 out of 10 experience. But part of what made it 10 out of 10 was because I really— freshman year, I stepped on campus and I was like, Okay, this is a new place. I'm gonna think about how I'm gonna use this place to my advantage so that I can build a life where getting into Yale, like, honestly, I don't even think about Yale anymore. Like, who the fuck cares? Like, prestigious university, whatever. But what I care about more is my life purpose and what drives me as a person now. And all goes to say, like, your accolades don't define you. You're probably gonna see a lot of videos about this as you go through college and hear people talking about it. But let this be a data point, right? Let this be a data point. That's all I have to say right now, I think. Yeah, that's all I have to say right now. If you have any questions, my email is in the description. No matter who you are, feel free to shoot me an email. Happy to talk about this because Nobody prepares you for what you're about to enter. You have won the lottery, my friend. Well, no, you have not won the lottery. The lottery is being born into this life, but you have won a lottery. And so now it's up to you to cash in that lottery ticket and use it to the best of your advantage. I trust in you.
