The ROI of Irrationality: What Grad School Actually Taught Me
I went to graduate school to specialize in computer graphics. I came out of it to find a job market that had practically vanished.
If I had listened to the conventional wisdom of the time, I would have pivoted. I would have cut my losses, updated my resume to reflect a safer trajectory, and moved on. For a time I did do just that and pivoted to computer security. But I realized it would be better to dig my heels in and commit to the career I wanted. Today, I have that career. But let’s be entirely clear: it wasn’t the institution or the degree that got me here. It was sheer, unadulterated stubbornness.
Looking back on that journey, there are a few hard truths about goals, higher education, and the absolute necessity of refusing to compromise.
The Danger of Being "Rational"
Throughout my life, I have developed a deep resentment for the advice to "be rational." We are constantly told to temper our expectations, play the percentages, and have a pragmatic fallback plan.
Here is the reality: in a world of eight billion people, rationality is just a mathematical formula for settling. To truly believe that you deserve to occupy a highly specific, fiercely competitive niche, you cannot be rational. You have to be deeply irrational. You need to possess a healthy streak of delusion to look at the impossible odds, the closed doors, and the saturated markets and decide, “Yes, that spot still belongs to me.” Rationality protects you from disappointment, but it also completely insulates you from your own potential.
The Illusion of the Academic Pipeline
We also need to have an honest conversation about the current state of higher education. It is time to acknowledge that much of academia has evolved into a heavily institutionalized enterprise that frequently extracts far more financial and temporal value from its students than it returns. It has become a systemic sinkhole, operating on a timeline fundamentally disconnected from the velocity of modern industry.
If you are relying on a core curriculum to prepare you for the cutting edge, you are already years behind. Too much of the standard coursework is a parade of outdated concepts and irrelevant syllabi that no longer apply to the real-world demands of tech or art. Ironically, the only classes reflecting the true, current state of the field are the "Special Topics", the seminars, and the elective. The very courses that the university administration rarely allows to count toward your actual degree requirements.
Learning is still essential, but we must recognize it for what it truly is: the continuous act of self-creation. Today, LLMs and Youtube can deliver raw information far more efficiently than a lecture hall, which means your intellectual evolution must be self-authored. A syllabus offers no armor against the future. The only real measure of a course's worth is whether it permanently alters the architecture of your thinking.
The Saving Grace: Research
There is one major caveat to this critique. The beating heart that keeps the academic body alive and the only reason it is still worth navigating is the research.
My saving grace in graduate school was securing a Graduate Research Assistantship (GRA). That was where the real education happened. Away from the archaic lectures and standardized rubrics, research is where you actually touch the boundary of what is possible. It is the one space left in the university ecosystem where discovery and innovation are prioritized over bureaucracy. If you are going to go to grad school, go for the research. Everything else is just noise.
Stubbornness as a Strategy
I didn't get my career because a piece of paper guaranteed me a spot in computer graphics. I got it because I refused to let an empty job market dictate my trajectory. The system is not designed to hand you your dream; it is designed to process you.
If you have a vision for your life, guard it fiercely against the "rational" advice of the masses. Take the research experience, absorb the uncredited special topics, and leave the bureaucratic friction behind. At the end of the day, your success won't be a product of the institution. It will be a testament to your refusal to quit.
First published 4/23/26 on blog.farzon.org
