Summary of what happened this year, what I’m looking forward to in 2023, etc. This was written very casually and serves more as a snapshot than as a beautiful piece of prose.
career changes:
In January, I spent a month on the Semantic Machines team at Microsoft. In retrospect, it was … kind of boring? I got pretty lucky with my mentor (a badass woman named Olivia) and my project (I got to use GPT-3 and Minecraft), but there was only so much I could accomplish in a four-week-long internship, especially given my lack of experience.
I signed an internship offer with Kensho, a data science company based in Cambridge, and spent the summer working as a full-stack software engineering intern. I didn’t really enjoy the hybrid office setup; as someone just starting out in my career, I think in-person mentorship and interaction is so important, but I never got to meet my mentor or manager in real life.
In terms of my computer science career, the biggest thing that happened for me this year was that I somehow got an A in 6.004 (now known as 6.1910, Computation Structures) this past spring, despite doing ehh on the exams, by pulling an all-nighter to get 16 points out of 20 on the final design project, one of the highest scores in the class. I ended up being a lab assistant for it during the fall semester. This experience made me realize I love performance optimization and low-level languages, and taking a notoriously difficult class called Computer Dynamic Language Engineering in the fall confirmed this for me. I think C++ and Assembly are so cool. This was significant because I thought previously that my master’s concentration was going to be Theoretical Computer Science (as I’m also a math major), and I didn’t think there was a particular facet of software engineering I was interested in. Now that I know what I really want to do—make algorithms faster—I feel much more moored, and less like I’m majoring in computer science just so I can get some well-paying job. It’s like I finally gained enough experience and knowledge in this field to truly cultivate a passion for it.
In terms of my math career, a paper I wrote last summer finally got published in the Electronic Journal of Combinatorics! This happened after the paper was first rejected by a different journal. I thought math research was pleasant enough, but I don’t want to pursue a PhD; it was great to have this experience, though. Also now I get to say that I have an Erdős number of 2 😌
As for my writing career, I’ve barely had any time to work on my novels, due to everything else happening. Writing is still my first love; I have multiple plot synopses written for my second book with Simon & Schuster, although I haven’t settled on one yet. Also, I’m always conflicted, because I am so immensely privileged to get to study mathematics and computer science at MIT and be surrounded by so many brilliant peers and professors, and part of me feels like if I work on creative writing instead (which I could do for the rest of my life), I’m squandering the opportunities I currently have.
But also, this is a little facetious but also a little true: I’m worried that ChatGPT and the upcoming GPT-4 will eradicate long-form writing, so maybe I should get my novels done before I get replaced by a robot…
relationship changes:
I broke up with Chris at the beginning of January. Ours was a long, drawn-out breakup where we realized that long distance wasn’t working, and since he decided to pursue a PhD after his master’s, it was likely it would still be many more years before we were going to be in the same location again.
I’m fortunate to remain good friends with my last ex from high school, and Chris and I wanted to stay friends after our breakup. I’m still in undergrad/don’t have that much dating experience, but my opinion is that many people aren’t able to stay friends after a breakup either because 1) there wasn’t much of a platonic foundation anyway, so once the romantic aspect of a relationship is gone, there isn’t much else; or 2) enough resentment and pain has built up from the deterioration of the relationship that two people need space from each other.
I’ve experienced both 1) and 2) in other relationships. To be honest, I did feel pretty sad after my breakup with Chris, not because he did anything wrong, but because I thought Chris was amazing and once-in-a-lifetime, and didn’t want to lose him. But thanks to strong communication and emotional maturity, things ultimately resolved fine. We still call almost daily.
Afterwards, I tried doing the dating app thing, but it was honestly a cesspool. After one mediocre first date where the other person only talked about himself and then blew up my phone with multiple texts begging for another date, I gave up and deleted all the apps. It was like—the person I was now, after Chris, was so starkly different from who I was three years ago, and I had a much lower tolerance for bullshit.
At the end of spring semester, I asked out a classmate, Brian, whom I knew from Twitter and a mixer my living group did with his frat. We went on a few dates before he had to leave for the summer, but ended up flying out to see each other a few times. He works near Boston now, so we see each other quite a bit, and as I write this, he is sitting nearby, composing a song for me, which makes my heart melt 🥺 He is really kind and a goofball, both of which are incredibly important traits to me.
On a more meta level, something that solidified for me this year was that I want to have kids someday, and thus, I want to find a partner who is going to make a good parent to my kids. The last time I had to think hard about what I wanted in a partner was in 2019, when I was deciding between Chris and a few other people (not like a Bachelorette scenario, just being in the talking stage with multiple people) and back then, I was so young that I didn’t consider if my potential options would make good parents; at that time, I didn’t even know if I wanted kids. But now, when I was looking for a partner again, this consideration really reframed a lot for me. Like, okay, this person has some iffy politics that maybe I could overlook … but would I be okay with my children being raised with these biases? No way. Or, I don’t personally enjoy exercising, but that’s something I want my children to value, so if my partner has a more active lifestyle, that’s a plus.
friendship changes:
A lot of my friends graduated this June. Tiffany, come back 😭 Given my nontraditional path through MIT, I’ve seen a lot of people come and go, and there’s an inevitable distancing after we’re no longer living in the same place. I unfortunately haven’t made as many new friends this year, as I stopped participating in most extracurriculars so I could really focus on my academics.
These days, I’m closest to some of the girls in my living group, but I don’t know how much of it is geographic proximity. To be clear, I adore these girls and feel very lucky they are in my life. Yet I worry the same inevitable distance will appear once we no longer live in the same house.
As I near 25, my prefrontal cortex has developed further, and I’ve noticed I’m able to approach my friendships with more maturity than when I was younger. Like, most conflicts can be solved with communication, most conflicts are not worth fighting about, etc. It’s a nice change.
health changes:
For the first time since puberty, I gained weight. Pretty much all my life, I’ve never worried about my body, due to genetics and age. But for the first time, I noticed that I actually had to watch what I eat and that I was no longer naturally maintaining my figure. To be clear, there is nothing wrong with gaining a few pounds and being skinny is not some virtue. It's more that I never had to think about my health before this year.
Over the summer, I tried going to the gym and exercising every morning, but then I got so tired that I couldn’t function very well for the rest of the day. And then once school started, I had no time to exercise. I’m not sure how to manage this…
I also went to the doctor and finally got on some medications. I’m happy about this! They’ve improved my quality of life, and I’m relieved that I finally got the support I needed.
Another big thing that happened this year is that I finally started washing my face twice a day and no longer get acne. My brother finds this annoying because he doesn’t understand why it took me this long to start doing this. I do think he has a point there.
academic changes:
Honestly, it is nice to no longer be 19 and uptight about my academic performance. I used to care so much about getting all As, because I derived self-worth from that. Now I care a lot more about actually learning the material and getting my money’s worth from this school, even if it means getting worse grades on paper. I have to take a bunch of computer science classes since I added the major so late, and it hasn’t been easy for me to balance all of them, but—we’re getting through it, we’re passing these classes, we’re going to graduate next semester.
I applied for the MEng program earlier this month, and I’ll find out later if I get in. I’m really hoping I do, so I can stay here and learn more computer science!
looking to 2023:
I need to take better care of my health. That means exercising consistently and eating healthier.
I would like to spend more time focusing on school and getting the most out of my last semester of undergrad.
But also, I want to meet more people and make more friends. If you’re in the Boston/Cambridge area, ping me and let’s get coffee, even if we haven’t met before!
I want to do more research in performance optimization and low-level languages, especially as I need to do a thesis for the MEng (assuming I get in).
I’m still interviewing with two companies for my summer 2023 internship, and there’s one company I’m really hoping I can work at. Fingers crossed!
Also need to prepare for full-time recruiting. Since I want to use C++, I need to learn more C++, plus Leetcode some more to pass those coding challenges.
I hope to write more and finish the first draft of my second book. I also miss humanities classes, so maybe I could take one next year.
Honestly, if I were able to achieve everything above, I’d be pretty happy with my life, but it would be great to work on more side projects as well, or level up my skillset.
Happy New Year everyone ❤️
YAY. Let's go Rona.
happy new year rona! cheers