I’d describe my time in college as a sandbox. I followed curiosities, chased great stories, and built cool projects with some amazing people. I achieved a 2.6 GPA, failed two classes, switched my major twice, made lots of friends and lost some, spent thousands on coffee and alcohol, bought shots for dozens of strangers, hosted unique parties, road tripped across the country, got the cops called on me a few times, and lived by the phrase “I’ll sleep when I die.”

Before college, I read a book called the Glass Bead Game. The main character lived in a society where the more you know, the higher you’re ranked. When he reached the highest ranking, he began having creative thoughts, writing novels, and still ending up depressed. He had all the knowledge in the world, but it was spent on living a meaningless life in an ivory tower. There is no point in accumulating knowledge from school, if you don’t use it to feel alive and help others.

My decision to not care about grades was a calculated risk that was coupled with a commitment to learn about what actually interested me. I reached out to people with unique backgrounds to learn from their life story, read books, doubled down on helping the student organizations I was in, and challenged myself with personal projects.

The more you take calculated risks that are aligned with your gut feelings, the more you inevitably fail. And the more failures you have, the more you build your life resume, and the more interesting you become. Fortunately for students, they have the option to fail with minimal consequence. Failing fast and failing hard in many areas allowed me to speak from experience, which, contrary to what you’re told, made it easy to find internships and be accepted in circles with way more interesting people than me.

The option to fail with minimal consequences makes you take yourself less seriously, feel deeply, learn rapidly, and live fearlessly.