Hello, What kinds of links in the Citadel would you find wise to get? (Imagine that you are a very extra son and not going to get the family seat without murder) I would want to get a comfortable life in a nice castle. Or at least make myself very useful and hard to replace. Not sure if you would have the same priorities. Ravenry and economics are important. I would think warfare wouldn’t be the most pragmatic choice. The nobles would think they know better than a weak man of education. Thanks.

I would argue that ravenry and medicine are the bare minimum for service outside the Citadel; no lord is going to pay for a maester without getting those base services. I’m sure there’s plenty of maesters who prefer an academic’s life who get by without those skills, but they can really only earn a living at the Citadel itself. 

Everything beyond that is about making yourself a more attractive advisor and teacher: so it’s not that learning warfare is important because you want to advise your lord on strategy, it’s important because you can teach his sons that while you’re teaching them to read and write. Likewise, learning math and economics and/or astronomy means that you can keep the account books and tell people when it’s best to plant and when to harvest, so that you can assume the role of a steward, giving you more influence in the lord’s household. Metullurgy or history or architecture or foreign languages might not be necessary for a marcher lord, but they would be useful to a great lord.

And so on.