Who Is Cal Newport And Why Am I Obsessed With His Work?

Louis Shulman
3 min readJun 15, 2019
Healy Hall at Georgetown University

Georgetown computer science professor Cal Newport serves as a major inspiration to me. He is an incredibly prolific academic, and he reached this level of professional success with stunning speed. This, however, is only his day job. Cal Newport is a highly successful author of over 5 popular titles relating to technology, productivity, career strategy, success, and college life; he also maintains a regular blog that supplements these books.

I have read three of these books including How to Win at College, How to Be a Straight-A Student, and Deep Work. I have read Deep Work and How to Win at College twice, and I have plans to revisit them again later. Additionally, I am currently in the middle of reading So Good They Can’t Ignore You, a career advice book. He also has a new book coming out February 5th called Digital Minimalism, and I anxiously await its arrival (I preordered in November).

I was initially exposed to Newport’s work in two ways. First, an ambitious friend of mine recommended the book Deep Work. Second, a popular blog I follow, “College Info Geek”, cites multiple Cal Newport books in the blog’s recommended books for students list. Intrigued by the summary of Deep Work, I chose to start there. After reading Deep Work, I was hooked on Newport’s ideology.

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Louis Shulman

Insatiably Curious | Growth at Pomp Crypto Jobs | Computer Science alum from Roll Tide