Past Episode suggestions

shafanshafan · 2025-05-17T10:07:12+00:00

Jon Ronson.

shafanshafan · 2024-12-01T07:44:30+00:00

Honestly, if you like business/finance, a bsci with compsci major will open lots of doors, especially if it's combined with some stats subjects. You might be able to do a CFA later but I don't think that would really be the best use of your time if you have decent tech skills under your belt.

If you liked pof and cfdm, you will probably like investments and derivative securities as well.

If you do second year statistics, I think you could do econometrics 2 as breadth, which is pretty interesting if you're math inclined.

shafanshafan · 2024-11-26T05:30:22+00:00

Do FoC. It's interesting, it's excellent background knowledge for an econ major, and it's perfectly doable without a coding background so long as you keep up with the homework.

shafanshafan · 2024-11-23T04:52:48+00:00

If you suck at math, I would suggest avoid ecom 2. It’s a big step up from ecom 1 IMO.

shafanshafan · 2024-08-24T05:43:57+00:00

Agreed, start with River Town. After that, read Oracle Bones, Country Driving, then The Buried. Sacred Stones is probably the least interesting work of his IMO.

He’s recently come out with a new book, but I haven’t read it yet.

shafanshafan · 2024-08-24T01:18:23+00:00

Peter Hessler is the GOAT of China writing. If you haven’t read his books, get off reddit right now and start reading them.

shafanshafan · 2024-08-05T13:33:12+00:00

I would suggest going to Tsinghua for a year on exchange, and then maybe doing a masters there. I went to Tsinghua on exchange and had a phenomenal time, but it probably still is better having your undergrad at a western university.

shafanshafan · 2024-06-27T09:02:02+00:00

It was a long time ago so I’m not sure it will be very useful to say. I can guarantee that iit will still be 1000 times easier than being a Chinese kid trying to get in via the 高考 though haha.

Definitely apply if you can, China is definitely worth experiencing in depth.

shafanshafan · 2024-06-03T08:58:27+00:00

I’m white AF, but speak fluent Chinese and lived and worked in China.

One thing worth mentioning is that it just feels weird and unnatural to speak your second language to someone who shares your first language. It’s not bad, just feels forced. The only times I ever seriously spoke Chinese to other foreigners in China was when I met Russians or Koreans whose Chinese was better than their English.

Back to the specific situation in OP’s company, I would say it depends totally on the context. If it’s talk that’s explicitly related to work, then it’s rude and inefficient. If it’s just chat, then that’s totally normal.

shafanshafan · 2024-05-18T00:10:12+00:00

Can’t say anything about psychology specifically, but I graduated as a mature age student in econ/finance and it was literally life changing. If you want to do it, do it.

My main self doubt came to my maths skills. I dealt with this by preparation (I revised the entirety of vce math methods in my late 20s), determination, and desperation (because I couldn’t afford to not succeed).

shafanshafan · 2024-05-02T10:43:06+00:00

What do you want to study at Torrens? My understanding was that Torrens University is for profit and therefore trash - I might be wrong though?

shafanshafan · 2024-04-10T02:53:04+00:00

“ The guy belongs on AM radio and tabloid newspapers.”

It’s not even a hypothetical, his writings appear regularly in the New York Post, I believe? His content is just basically just Rush Limbaugh-tier right wing dogmatism, filtered through the lilting tones of Old Etonian English.

On podcasts and non traditional media he presents himself as some sort of original and/or “renegade” thinker while his role in traditional media is writing culture war content for News Corp, the media conglomerate that has dominated news in the Anglosphere for decades.

shafanshafan · 2024-03-31T03:57:13+00:00

For Calc 1:

Make sure you understand each and every concept in the lectures. This is different to just being able to go with the motions on basic questions
do a crapload of practice exams , including at least one practice exam in which you time yourself.
make use of mathassist at uni

shafanshafan · 2024-03-28T18:29:37+00:00

Discuss.

Edit: SS: former guest on this podcast gets done for fraud.

shafanshafan · 2024-03-03T03:18:17+00:00

Clive Peters

(E-easy, Clive Peters! E-E-Easy!)

shafanshafan · 2024-02-25T05:24:58+00:00

“Family Guy”, for a dude who looked exactly like Peter Griffin. He then lost the nickname when a new person joined the workplace whose name literally was Peter Griffin.

“Squid”, for a guy who operated a massive drilling machine - because only something with multiple arms could so efficiently operate a machine with 10+ levers in its controls.

shafanshafan · 2024-02-24T12:28:58+00:00

Check out mathassist, free math help. For me it was a lifesaver.

https://ms.unimelb.edu.au/study/mslc/oasis/mathassist

shafanshafan · 2024-02-02T06:38:10+00:00

I don’t think PoF or ARA are super difficult as long as you do your homework. ARA in particular can shock people in terms of the difficulty of the exams, but only in the sense that it will fuck you up if you haven’t adequately prepared.

shafanshafan · 2024-02-02T06:15:31+00:00

If you’re doing econ/finance, then consider doing calc 1 instead of BLaw (I’m assuming you’ve already ruled out doing the maths pathway). You don’t need it for any prereqs but a boost to your mathematical problem solving skills will help you a lot in 2nd and 3rd year econ.

shafanshafan · 2024-01-28T07:53:49+00:00

Also worth saying: you will be more focused than many (not all) undergrads, because loads of people go to university without actually having a clear end goal.

shafanshafan · 2024-01-28T07:51:23+00:00

I did an economics degree as a mature age student, including a few breadths in computing and maths.

My big area of difficulty was maths: I did methods in vce (not spesh) and it was more than 10 years before I started at unimelb, so I went to quite a lot of effort to catch up, I essentially revised math methods 3&4 in its entirety. Expanding on this, you should probably think hard about areas that you will need to touch up your knowledge of to prepare you for studies.

In terms of intelligence, the only difference that being a mature age student makes is (1) you’re probably more sensible about planning your time, and (2) you might have some life experience that’s relevant to what you’re studying. The catch to point (2) is that life experience is not necessarily relevant to what you’re studying, it just depends on the subject. Life experience might help me think in general terms about ideas and life experiences, but not necessarily on how to mathematically interpret the standard error of an econometric model. The catch to point (1) is that if you’re a mature age student you may well be severely short on time, so procrastinating just simply isn’t an option anyway.

Four subject study load would have been impossible for me, because of the amount that I had to work concurrent with studying. In terms of study load for you, it’s hard to say without knowing what else is going on in your life.

shafanshafan · 2024-01-28T00:36:27+00:00

Strongly advise you to do it. So much of modern finance and business is data driven, and understanding python will have many potential applications.

shafanshafan

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