Here’s advice OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy wishes he was told as an undergraduate student

In a blog post he wrote for his alma mater, Stanford University, tech millionaire Andrej Karpathy shared the advice he wishes he had told undergraduates at that age. Karpathy was the co-founder of OpenAI and the former head of artificial intelligence (AI) and Autopilot Vision at Tesla.

In a detailed post outlining advice on exam preparation and general life at university, Karpathy wrote a separate “final (very important piece of advice)” for students, wishing “someone had told me when I was an undergrad.”

What is Andrej Karpathy’s advice?

The tech inventor noted that undergraduates “tend to have tunnel vision” about their classes, where they focus on good grades.

He noted: “The most important truth to realize is that as long as your grades aren’t bad, no one will care… Your time is a valuable, finite resource. Get to the point where you won’t screw up on the exam, and then turn your attention to much more important endeavors.”

According to Karpathy, these more significant efforts will move students much further in their careers than test scores. “Getting real, real-world experience, working on real codebase, projects, or problems outside of silly class exercises is extremely important. Professors/people who know you and can write a good reference letter that tells you that you have initiative, passion, and perseverance are extremely important.”

‘Experience, letters of recommendation are important’

He recommended students take summer internships, gain research experience, “enroll in programs your school offers, or reach out to a professor/graduate student who would like to get involved in a research project you like.”

“Don’t underestimate the importance of this: A prominent professor writing in his recommendation letter that you are driven, motivated, and an independent thinker completely overshadows everything else, especially trivial things like grades,” he added.

But Karpathy cautioned against doing things just for the sake of it or half-heartedly, noting that “one of the biggest irritants” for professors are “overexcited undergraduates who sign up for a project, meet a few times, ask a lot of questions, and then just give up and disappear.”

‘Build something of your own’

Finally, Karpathy felt that students should also spend some time building something outside of their research projects. “Work with a group of people on side projects, or better yet, start your own project from scratch. Contribute to Open Source, create/develop a library. Get out there and create (or help create) something great,” he said.

We add that having these in your portfolio when you graduate can provide a much higher boost than plain test scores. “Document it well. Blog about it. These are the things people will care about in a few years. Your grades? Those are just a pain you’ll have to deal with along the way. Use your time wisely and good luck,” he wrote.

Any similar advice from Elon Musk?

This advice is important as more American students seek to explore new paths beyond a college degree. A November NBC poll of 1,000 registered voters showed that 33 percent of voters agreed that a four-year college degree is ‘worth the cost’ and increases the chances of finding a good job and making more money in their lifetime.

But in contrast, 63% of people think it is ‘not worth the cost’ because people often graduate without specific job skills. The survey noted that most people cited rising education costs as the main reason for their views.

Earlier this month, Zoho Corp’s Sridhar Vembu also highlighted this shift and urged Indian parents to let their children do the same. “Smart American students are now skipping college, and forward-thinking employers are enabling them,” he wrote of X.

He added that at Zoho, “no job requires a college degree, and if a manager posts a job that requires a degree, they get a polite message from HR to remove the degree requirement.”

Zerodha’s Nikhil Kamath was also in hot water for suggesting that 25-year-olds are “idiots” pursuing an MBA. Appearing in his podcast, Elon Musk stated that his own children want to go to university and shared his views on young people getting diplomas.

The world’s richest man mused: “If you want to go to university for social reasons. I think that’s a reason to be around people your own age in a learning environment. Will those skills be necessary in the future? Probably not, because we’re going to be like a post-work society. But I think if there’s something interesting, it’s okay to go study it. You know, study arts and sciences.”

When asked if the university in its current form was too generalized, especially considering the changes ushered in by artificial intelligence, Elon Musk felt it was important to learn as much as possible.

“I actually think it’s good to take a wide variety of classes in college, if you’re going to go to college. I don’t think you have to go to college. But if you are going to go, try to learn as much as you can about a wide variety of subjects,” he said.

He adds: “But as I said, AI and robotics are a supersonic tsunami. So this is going to be the most radical change we’ve ever seen. When I talk to my older kids, they’re pretty tech-savvy. They also accept that AI in the future will probably make their skills redundant, but they still want to go to college.”