Ehh who cares - as the new school semester starts and the fresh air of new years is still motivating me, I want to write a bit of a review of my 2024 while also looking at what I want to focus on this year.
How do you review a year?
2024 was, I believe, one of the best years in my very short life so far. However, if you ask me to tell you why that is, I wouldn't really be able to tell you. I don't really remember any goals that I set out to accomplish in 2023, but when I think about my current life, I don't have too many complaints. I feel like I ended the year strong and was able to be kept on a path to set me up really well for this year.
Flying and Learning
Two big things came to me via email in the early spring of 2024, and that was two emails: one from Breakthrough Tech saying that I had been accepted into their fellowship, as well as a separate email detailing how I will be able to fly to Seattle for a one-week internship with Nordstrom introducing me to their work environment and tech department. Both emails came within days of each other, and I felt luckier and more fortunate than I have ever felt, given that I knew I tried really hard to get into both, which spawned a lot of anxiety and stress as I waited.
Breaking through
Breakthrough Tech started off with a machine learning course that I took during the summer in which I got to learn the fundamentals of machine learning and AI. I knew even before I started that I was going to enjoy the course given that machine learning felt like a really cool mix of math and computer science with statistical knowledge. I was able to pass the course, and this led to one of the most fun parts, which was being able to participate in the company challenge for The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research.
Not only was this one of the projects that I wanted to do the most – mainly because I always loved mixing neuroscience and biology with computer science – but the teammates that I got paired up with were all genuinely cool people who I was able to grow close with to be much more than just project mates and peers but actual friends. Some of the best moments were before or after meetings where we just talked about our lives, and this led me to care deeply about the work that we were doing.
The MJ Fox project as well was a challenge, and it felt much more like a research project with a larger and deeper impact rather than just a challenge thrown at us to make us feel busy. It forced me and my team to learn a lot of new things and try and fail a bunch. It also led us to ask for outside help from Seth, a PhD machine learning researcher who had some experience with similar data and who kept in touch with us and even came to watch our final presentation, which is all the more reason why I think this was one of the biggest motivators for me to not just continue on the software engineering path but also look at diving deeper into research and machine learning for my future career.
Flying for the first time
When I was on the plane, there was a grandma and granddaughter sat next to me. The process of arriving at the airport, going through security, finding my flight, and boarding was completely new to me; I never have had the privilege of traveling much. So while I was in my seat and we were about to take off, and the nerves started to set in as the plane began to almost walk itself to where it would take off, the granddaughter I believe could almost feel my hesitance as my gaze was fixed on the window, and so she asked me if I wanted a piece of gum to help with my ears popping as the plane's altitude increases. It was an inconsequential gesture but for me it signified the first of my fortunate events that happened for me over the next week.
It was an incredibly new and awakening experience but it was one that I would never trade. I plan to write a larger write-up of my experience at Nordstrom after this summer, so apologies for the lack of details. The largest thing that I gained, however, was the community and friends of peers. I have never seen such a large group of people from different places and of unique upbringing be able to bond so quickly, and I can't wait to go back and meet new and old people alike again.
Now what?
I have a lot of opportunities presented to me that are going to be coming in the near future: finishing out the Breakthrough Tech program, going to Seattle in the summer to participate in my first software engineering internship, and hopefully graduating at the end of the year. These are big events.
When my mentor asked me what goals I had, I ended up thinking in terms of career, school, and personal. For career and school, it's quite clear to me what my goals are, but when I thought about my personal goals, I thought more introspectively about how I wanted to perceive myself in a year from now. This always isn't a clear process, and as I mulled on my inner thoughts, I realized that I wanted to push myself to actively try and fail at more things. For now, that's a small list of hobbies that I have always pushed off and which my ambition always loses steam before it turns into a drive and solidifies as a habit. They are hobbies which aren't meant for anyone else but me and which are challenging while being rewarding to make progress on. Shifting my way of thinking when it comes to not only creating but maintaining goals is one of the bigger resolutions that I have for the year, and I hope to be able to accomplish more because of this change.
As you read, you probably were looking for a list of goals or habits that I'm looking to accomplish or work on during the year given how much I have talked about it, but the reality is that I didn't want to write about my specific goals. This is because I feel like most goals which are talked about stay goals and never cross into actual accomplishments. I've read that when you end up telling people about your plans or goals, it ends up giving you a positive feeling that ends up being a substitute for actually progressing on them. So you end up telling more and more people because the validation feels good, and then they eventually forget about your goals cause they have stuff going on in their life, and then sooner or later all that validation goes away, and then you end up forgetting your own goals until the year is over and you put the goal back on your list for the following year. This is why I mainly just wanted to talk about the mental shifts that I have going into the new year rather than my specific goals.
Hope your 2025 treats you well!