Meeting with Bekhzod Hoshimov, Economist and NYUAD Professor

Disclaimer: All points above reflect my personal takeaways, not official statements from Bekhzod Hoshimov (@iqtisodchi_kundaligi) or the students. Narrated by me, systematized by AI.

Recently, I sat down with Bekhzod Hoshimov, an economist and NYU Abu Dhabi professor, alongside a group of students including Alpamis, a Cornell admit, and Abdulaziz, an incoming YYGS student.

Our meeting brought me back to my Yale-NUS days where we could have lunches with professors and marvel at the insights they are sharing.

A few key takeaways.

Transcending misleading hierarchies.

Students tend to overfocus on prestige and perceived university tiers. The difference in resources, professors, and curriculums between an education at Harvard and a place like NYUAD is not as pronounced as people think. The primary difference is the selection effect. You are simply surrounded by a more heavily filtered, competitive student body.

Broad university rankings can also be highly deceptive. Institutions like Williams College may rank lower on generic global lists but actually provide a vastly superior undergraduate experience compared to massive research universities. Some schools specialize deeply in specific niches and completely outpace bigger brand-name universities in those fields.

Optimizing for status vs. profit.

Students often bring the hierarchical thinking they developed during the admissions process straight into their job market search. Many want to get into a top school just to work at the most prestigious company, like Goldman Sachs. I mentioned a past conversation where I asked a Dean of Yale College about this. He replied that it is perfectly normal for students to focus on making money post-graduation.

Bekhzod aka’s rebuttal was brilliant. He argued these students aren't actually maximizing for profit. If they were truly optimizing for financial return, they would pursue stealth wealth by targeting unoccupied, unglamorous niches where they could make outsized profits. For example, a business in trash management lacks the social prestige of Wall Street but often generates far greater actual wealth. Instead, they maximize for social status, which means they lose out financially in the long run.

Avoiding the trap of premature monetization.

Another concerning trend is how quickly students try to monetize their admissions experience. Right after getting accepted into a school like NYU Abu Dhabi, they immediately start playing the expert and teaching admissions. While the short-term financial temptation is understandable, it is a long-term loss. By focusing on admissions consulting, they miss out on developing deep, foundational skills like data science or biology that would position them much better for the real world.

Final thoughts.

The meeting with Bekhzod aka humbled me. It is always a special pleasure and privilege to meet someone so well-read and relying on specific papers in building their arguments. "The world is nuanced," as Bekhzod aka mentioned, and I hope that our students and community at Freshman will capture the nuances that academia illuminates.

@iqtisodchi_kundaligi x @valeranotes

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