Whenever I visit a university, students ask for Big Advice. I protest that I don’t have great secrets for life and that my own path has been serendipitous, but they suspect me of holding out.

So as we approach the holidays — a time for reflection and New Year’s resolutions — let me reveal everything. I hereby share with young people the Four Secrets of Success:

1. Take a class in economics and in statistics. I majored in political science and later studied law, but in retrospect I would have focused on economics. Likewise, if you have to choose, skip calculus and focus on statistics.

Education isn’t about filling a bucket but about gaining a tool belt — and economics and statistics offer terrific tools that for the rest of your life will help you analyze problems in more rigorous ways. I champion the humanities for the wisdom they offer, but I do believe that philosophers and playwrights should have present value and standard deviations in their citizen tool belts.

We might also have sounder policy if our leaders weren’t economic illiterates. President Trump and congressional Republicans sold the 2017 tax cut on the absurd notion that it would pay for itself (instead, we’re now running a $1 trillion deficit). And it’s not just Republicans: Democrats have been embracing rent control, even though basic economics show that typical rent-control schemes make housing shortages worse by increasing demand without increasing supply.