If I was a student again, I’d do this

University is worth it—but only if students treat the degree as the main quest and deliberately “level up” through side quests that build high-income skills. With jobs and economic stability increasingly uncertain, the practical payoff of college comes less from simply graduating and more from arriving at graduation with marketable capabilities that help people earn money.

The argument starts with a framework for what university is actually for. Student life has four core objectives: enjoy the experience, learn knowledge and skills, earn a certificate that improves job prospects, and make friends (or network). Those goals are all valid, but they don’t automatically translate into financial security. The real purpose of the main quest—starting and finishing the degree—is preparation for adult life, especially getting a job.

That’s where the “video game” analogy tightens. Graduating by only completing the main story line leaves a person “underleveled”: less experience, fewer developed skill trees, and a weaker job-market position. Side quests matter because they add experience, loot, and capability—turning time in university into a period of skill accumulation rather than just credential collection. The transcript stresses that many side activities (nightclubs, alcohol/substances, casual sports) are fun but don’t reliably build skills that translate into higher earnings. The key is to keep enjoying student life while also choosing side quests that increase employability.

To make the point concrete, the transcript compares “low-income” hobby skills with “high-income” trade skills. Learning guitar or chess can be personally rewarding, but—unless someone reaches elite levels—it rarely becomes a dependable path to income. By contrast, coding is presented as a high-income skill because it unlocks developer roles, remote work, and the ability to build businesses (including software-as-a-service). A specific example is offered: a friend who learned coding through side projects and hackathons while working in management consulting later built a video editing app called Fire Cut, reaching about $10,000 per month within roughly two months and later around $1.2 million per year.

Design is framed as another high-income skill. UI/UX expertise is described as scarce in the market, and combining design with coding creates “full stack” product capability that increases hiring value—especially for startups and tech companies that can hire remotely. Beyond coding and design, the transcript lists additional high-income skills: copywriting, sales, using AI effectively, building AI systems and automations, and statistics/data analysis that turns business data into actionable insight.

The closing message is direct: don’t “speedrun” graduation. Use the free time of student life to develop high-income skills alongside the certificate, friendships, and enjoyment. The payoff is not just employability; it’s the ability to add value to the marketplace—solving problems people pay for—so students graduate as “an absolute weapon of a character,” better positioned to avoid the job-market struggles that can follow a credential-only approach.