Celebrated Things

A list of tools, materials, behaviors, mindsets and methodologies that are used in the EDS.

Celebrated Things

The list below has evolved over decades of working with undergraduate and graduate students on course projects, research, external collaborations and competitions. The EDS encourages ways of working that produce to successful outcomes, and the tools, materials, behaviors, mindsets and methodologies listed below can often help. We have a list of anti-tools, as well, in case you want to know why someone in the EDS might think you're not being a good neighbor.

1. A 3-button mouse. BTW, we have written an article specifically about selecting a mouse.

2. A laptop capable of driving two external 4K displays at 60Hz. If your goal is to be productive above and beyond the norm, you simply cannot do serious work on a single laptop, iPad, or phone screen. Having three, always-visible and connected workspaces will transform the way you work. You might think that adding more displays will make you even more productive, but after some testing, the ideal configuration for most setups is a laptop with two external displays. If you travel often and expect to do serious work on the road, consider carrying portable monitors. BTW, we have collected some thoughts on setting up displays, as well.

3. Embracing "Type 2" fun. Dr. Rainer Newberry, a geology professor at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, created the “Fun Scale” around 1985. A "Type 1 Fun" activity is fun while it happens as well as fun upon reflection. A "Type 2 Fun" activity is miserable while it happens but later seen as fun(ny), in hindsight. A "Type 3 Fun" activity is both miserable while it happens as well as when recalling it later. "Type 2 Fun" is the sweet spot in which exceptional work gets done because you're working harder on problems that the rest of the world would prefer to transform into "Type 1 Fun". Don't confuse simple suffering for being on track for "Type 2 Fun", though; if it's your first time choosing the type 2 fun path, you may wish to seek some external validation that you are authentically engaging in "Type 2 Fun" and not "Type 1/3 Fun".

4. Becoming an autodidact, one who learns through self-study.

5. Speaking quietly in the EDS (Or any other place where people are trying to use their brains)

6. Leaving places better than you found them

7. Wasting Time.

8. Digging Deep.

9. Becoming weirdly. That's not a typo. Being weird, as an affectation or as the sum of all your complex internal states, is not likely going to help you. Being weirdly, will. Become weirdly good at coming up with good ideas. Become weirdly attuned to weak signals in the world. Become weirdly good at evaluating ideas, critiquing ideas, implementing ideas. Become weirdly knowledgeable about many things. Become weirdly obsessed with things. Become weirdly passionate. Become weirdly hard-working. Become weirdly self-motivated. Becoming weirdly good will serve you well.

10. Existing outside of stereotypes. Be incongruous. Where you were born, what your parents believe, the place you call home, your name, and a million other things about you were 100% not your choice, and they should not define you. Don't be a caricature of the circumstances that brought you into the world. University is a time to define, by choice, who you are, what you believe in, and how you want to live your life. Be experimental. Be wrong. But whatever you do, don't just be the same person you've always been.

11. Cleaning up after yourself

12. Cleaning up after others

13. Strategic thinking. Following a prescribed path is not strategic. Extrapolating is not strategic. Strategy contains a thesis or opinion about why a certain future position is desirable, not just that it is inevitable, and a map of how to get to that new place. Too many individuals and organizations host "strategic planning" meetings in which planning is discussed but strategy is notably absent. You can plan for a larger incoming cohort, but it requires having an adult conversation (AKA ruffling some feathers) to discuss the strategic advantages and disadvantages of cohort sizes.

14. Aiming for exceptional outcomes. Incongruously, institutions and bureaucracies enjoy bragging about the "exceptional" outcomes produced by individuals who have, merely coincidentally, walked their corridors. The word "exceptional" implies atypical performance that deviated from the average. An institution, by definition, produces non-exceptional outcomes, on average, so any bureaucrat or policy-slinger should be charged with the mission to, in every interaction, ask themselves, "have I done everything in my power to defang the beast and remove roadblocks to allow exceptional work to happen?" The default posture of a bureaucrat should be one of seeking to make exceptions to policies for those with lofty ambitions. The EDS is a place where exceptional outcomes are expected as a default; we aim to leave all of the average and below average ideas on the cutting room floor. This means you have to have considered and given thought to a whole range of ideas, including those that you have previously loved and have had to painfully divorce yourself from.

15. Aiming for unprecedented outcomes. Institutions misunderstand the word "exceptional", and they similarly abuse the word "unprecedented". Being able to brag about "unprecedented" results is the dream for Press-Release-Slingers. Once again, we need to deconstruct and see that "unprecedented" is built around the word "precedent", something that bureaucrats and policy-slingers often weaponize in one of their favorite phrases, "no. that goes against policy. we don't want to set a precedent." This is, once again, the curse of institutions; they want to claim a causal relationship when "unprecedented" outcomes are produced, but individuals at the core of institutions are typically obsessed with weaponizing existing policies to prevent the setting of new precedents. Bureaucrats and administrators would do well to ask themselves, "does my dealing with individuals unlock opportunities for people doing the REAL work of my organization to produce unprecedented results?"

16. Killing Your Darlings.

17. Becoming comfortable and confident that good ideas can stand for themselves. Certainly, you may need to market an idea to others in order for them to get used to the concept, but once you introduce an idea, it should be able to be wrestled with, mercilessly, by others. If it can't survive this deep inquiry, it was a weak idea to begin with. Let it die.

18. Spending time deeply understanding a problem before "picking up a shovel". Professors are terrible at this and pass along a busy-body flavor of insanity to students through their anxiety. When starting a project, too many faculty members prefer early prototyping before thinking, an act that often anchors the scope of the outcome to the land of mediocrity. When building a cathedral, sure you need to dig a foundation, but a shovel isn't the first tool to grab; you need blueprints, stone masons, artists, and to understand a whole host of other details before jumping in with a shovel.

19. Understanding that being busy is not a virtue.

20. Understanding that movement is not the same as forward motion.

21. Using software as the place to iterate and evaluate designs.

22. Planning for professional fabrication.

23. Understanding international supply chains.

24. Doing more than you were asked.

25. Doing great work, specifically and especially, when you know no one is watching. When no one is promising rewards or threatening punishment, still do excellent work.

26. Climbing a landfill, not shimmying up a flagpole. You're going to encounter and produce a lot of garbage along the way.

27. Being capable of understanding the difference between what will be well-received and poorly-received surprises.

28. Back-casting.

29. Pre-mortems.

30. Independent thinking.

31. Critical Thinking.

32. Assuming that "all that is not forbidden, is allowed", and some times, even thoses things that seem to be forbidden, are, in fact, allowed when demonstrated why they should be allowed. This is in stark opposition to a default assumption by many that "anything other than what is expressedly permitted, is forbidden."

33. Having Empathy.

34. Having Comfort with ambiguity

35. Having Comfort with changing constraints

36. Parametric CAD.

37. Toolchains.

38. Open-Source. Use it. Produce it.

39. Simulation Tools.

40. Using the EDS as your office for doing serious work, not just homework.

41. Not scheduling meetings.

42. Quitting sports teams.

43. Quitting on-campus jobs.

44. Zero. Designing for zero.

45. Living on campus and not commuting to NYUAD.

46. Being additive.

47. Being High-Agency.

48. Under-consuming.

49. Understanding Conway's Law: "The structure of any system designed by an organization is isomorphic to the structure of the organization."

50. Understanding that university research is only good at certain things.

51. Understanding that university research is BAD at many things.

52. Understanding that university research is BAD at most things it thinks it's good at.

53. Understanding that university capstone projects cannot produce a "low-cost" anything. If a project is composed of off-the-shelf components, combined in predictable ways that would be obvious to an expert in the field, the creator of that project must provide extreme evidence how they've achieved "low-costs" relative to the costs of anyone else buying and assembling the same off-the-shelf components. The typical claim of "low-cost" is built on a naive notion of placing the material cost of a student prototype (almost always less than $1000 due to capstone budget policies) in direct comparison with the cost of a commercial "expensive" product (typically $5k+). This comparison ignores the cost of keeping the capstone team alive for the year that they worked on the project, the "free" consulting of their mentor, and the "free" access to fabrication tools on campus. The real company that produces the "expensive" product has to pay its employees, pay rent for office space, pay for product certification, provide support, offer warranties, engage in marketing, buy raw materials, absorb losses from overstocking and quality issues, and a thousand other things that, when tallied, must add up to expenditures less than the sum of the total product value sold. Industrial automation, high-volume discounts, lean organizations, well-crafted supply chains, etc are the typical ways that humanity has opened up access to "low-cost" items. Unsurprisingly, bespoke, one-off products produced in a "cottage industry" are typically more expensive relative to their industrial counterparts because sales volume is low, and, at minimum, the sales revenues need to cover the cost of the raw materials and a single proprietor's living expenses. Low-cost is a consequence of needing to keep a company alive, not something that students should whimsically claim because they couldn't identify anything unique about the project they're copying from industry. The more honest claim students should makes is that they are producing a cheap, kludged-together, and naive approximation of what already exists in the market; uniquely, though, their prototype has fewer features, works poorly, and falls apart very easily. #LowCost

54. Knowing the rate at which things happen compared with the rate you are observing them or manipulating them. Simple concepts from control theory are often ignored.

55. Understanding that extreme claims require extreme evidence.

56. Understanding that no one is obligated to believe you.

57. Understanding that access to cash is not the problem.

58. Understanding that professors are not good entrepreneurs.

59. Things are important, even if you can't get PR from them.

60. Things are important, even if they are not easily packaged into a FOMO-inducing social media post.

61. Doing things the right way, not just the way that makes it easiest. (especially when making it easier for you will knowingly and purposefully make it harder for others)

62. Willing to submit an empty form. If a form needs to be submitted before a deadline, be willing to risk submitting an "empty form" if the authentic information required for the form is not available. Also, if the form is nonsensical, be willing to submit a truly empty form an wait for the receiver to reply asking for the relevant information. Forms are usually part of someone else's conception of a process that is time-efficient for themselves, not those filling the form.

63. Learning how to be vaguely specific.

64. Learning how to be specifically vague.

65. Learning how to not know the answer.

66. When possible, doing things at the pace they need to be done, not an arbitrary pace determined by an external busy-body. Often, allowing a problem to linger, haunt, and dwell in your mind is the only way to incorporate all the factors that need to be considered. Try to create opportunities for this process to proceed at a rate that is not a sprint.

67. Using high-quality tape. Use 3M Scotch Magic Tape instead of generic clear tape (setting your future self up for a sticky mess) or generic masking tape (note: while painter's blue tape seems like a good option, but it gets disgustingly sticky if left for long periods). Use Teraoka No. 4140 or 4140D P-Cut (leaves no residue even after years of installation) instead of Duct Tape or Gaffer's Tape (which is a better option than Duct Tape, but leaves residue if installed for long periods). Nitto "Nitoms ProSelf Adhesive Tape for Repairing Blue Sheets" is another good option that does not leave residure after years of installation (veified). Spend more to get an exceptional experience - cutting corners here is a classic case of "false economy".

68. Using white-tak, not blue-tak. Blue-tak stains walls and surfaces in the long-term. Faber-Castell makes an excellent white-tak called "Tack-It". Spend more to get an exceptional experience - cutting corners here is a classic case of "false economy".

69. Using high-quality Post-It notes. Off-brand sticky notes are terrible. The adhesive on the 3M Post-It notes is famously good; others' adhesives are famously bad. Spend more to get an exceptional experience - cutting corners here is a classic case of "false economy".