The Ambitious Student Reading List

Conquer college and set yourself up for a productive career.

For a couple of years, I’ve had the pleasure of collaborating with LeadTheFuture Mentorship and having great conversations with Italian students.

One topic that often comes up is how to stay on top of the university lessons and assignments while having enough free time to explore other interests, work on side projects (the best way of boosting your CV!), or, you know, have a life.

My recommendation is always the same: read Cal Newport.

Cal is a computer science professor who explores the intersection of technology and culture. His recent work includes multiple New York Times best-selling books and a regular column on The New Yorker, but he started out writing student advice almost two decades ago.

Here is the Cal Newport reading list I wish I had access to when I was at uni.

Start with How to Become a Straight-A Student for the most practical advice to become more productive and thrive as a student.

If you want more student-specific advice, follow up with How to Win at College: 75 short chapters with rules and principles, such as “Study in Fifty-Minute Chunks” and “Befriend a Professor.”

Follow up with Deep Work to learn how to make the most of your focus time and fend off distractions. I can’t state how impactful this book has been in how I work and organize my day as a remote software engineer and wannabe writer.

If the “Quit Social Media” chapter from Deep Work struck a chord, take a detour and read Digital Minimalism for a vision of technology deployed with intention.

With the books above, you’ll have built a strong foundation to foster and deploy your focus. Read So Good They Can’t Ignore You to put it into practice. This book is perfect for ambitious students getting ready to enter the real world. It challenges the popular “follow your passion,” arguing instead that a fulfilling career is built on mastery and intentionality.

His most recent books, A World Without Email and Slow Productivity, are geared toward people who are already in the knowledge work sector. You’ll still get value from reading them, but I would save them for last.

And if those books are not enough, check Subtract, Getting Things Done, Rest, Range, and Clear Thinking for various ideas at the intersection of productivity and living with intention. Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the best book I ever read: The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch. You won’t find much productivity advice there, but I guarantee it will upgrade your thinking.

Once you are done reading, listen to Cal’s podcast: Deep Questions for a weekly refresher on his ideas.

I hope you’ll find this list useful. Looking back at my uni days, I wish I had access to that information. Most hadn’t been published yet, but neither was I switched on enough to google “time management advice for students,”—go figure…

I only managed to stay on track (barely) because I got lucky and made a group of friends to study and build with. We kept each other motivated, shared notes, and complemented each others’ study and execution strengths. I got my first (and second) real job thanks to them and I learned more in one hackathon weekend together than in one semester of lessons.
To this day, we keep sharing advice and banter even though we are spread across many time zones.

And that is my one piece of “original” advice:

Build genuine friendships with your fellow students.

The grades and the assignments will fade away the moment you leave the campus, but the friendships you’ll make have the opportunity to last forever.