from: Amy Huang amy.jiamei.huang@gmail.comto: jason@jasoncrawford.orgdate: Jan 16, 2021, 6:13 PMsubject: Question from a Roots of Progress reader: first mile vs. last mile problemsmailed-by: gmail.com Hi Jason, I read your blog and twitter avidly. They help me think about the question "how do I do the most good for society?" I'm writing to ask for your … Continue reading An email I sent to Jason Crawford

I am devoutly atheist. Growing up in suburban Texas, I made a lot of religious friends, a few of which sometimes encouraged me to try Christianity on for a size. It did not work, but I gained a huge appreciation for religion. As flawed as it is, religion is admirable for being humankind's attempt at … Continue reading An atheist’s moral code

Lately I've been posting to Linkedin a lot. It seems like the right place to shout into the void about work stuff, and I enjoy bringing healthy cynicism to a platform known for disgustingly cheerful content. Here are 4 of my posts that I particularly like. On Managers Having a manager who is a decent … Continue reading 4 Linkedin posts I’m proud of

It is October 2020. I graduated from Brown in May 2020 and have been working as a software engineer since June 2020. I love how research makes your life into a beautiful narrative arc of professional achievement. The lives of scientists are strikingly linear. You found yourself in a PhD and eventually a researcher job. … Continue reading I will not be applying to PhD programs in 2020

The way I see it, I accumulate career capital--work experiences, credentials, skills, reputation--so that I can spend it on taking jobs I like and so build a career that I am proud of and enjoy. Because work is such a huge part of everyone’s lives, I think this is crucial to having a happy existence. … Continue reading Career capital is for spending

Over the last year I’ve tried and failed many times to write a cohesive summary of my professional forays during college: internships, on-campus jobs, classes, and otherwise. I always end up simply recounting the things I did each summer and semester, unable to tease a linear and compelling storyline from my source material. How can … Continue reading Interest, competence, opportunity: the trifecta of professional growth

What has always impressed me about scientists is their singular focus on improving the world through their line of work. It’s hard to find one who genuinely doesn’t care about bringing tangible, significant, and permanent impact to society.  While I’m not sure yet if I want to be a researcher myself, I do know that … Continue reading Approaching work and life like a scientist

What makes people happy is not a great mystery, and it is not hard to guess what generally matters to any individual person. Yet, it is the undertaking of a lifetime to pursue those things without distraction or loss of courage. I made this document as a commitment to myself. It’s one thing to idly … Continue reading Amy Huang’s first principles

In the last weeks of my senior year of college, I developed a procrastination habit for the first time.  For most of my life, my fear of failure has always been much stronger than my desire to blow off work. In fact, it was usually so much stronger that the only way that I could … Continue reading Quarantine taught me that I need momentum more than time

I wrote this for Quora in fall 2018, and describes my frustrations with Brown's computer science department bureaucracy pretty well. That semester was formative for me. I learned how capable I truly was of running a big people operation, but also how taxing it can be.                        … Continue reading Head Teaching Assistant woes