the first time returning was a little scary. everything was familiar, yet they felt different. the same classrooms but different classes, the same places but different people, the same album but different memories.

looking back, the semester felt like a blur. time didn’t seem to flow the same way it did last fall. maybe it’s because my time wasn’t delineated with as many new experiences. i knew what to expect and what i was getting involved in. it wasn't immediately clear what takeaways i have from this semester, but i did learn a lot.

what you want and what you need

going into the semester, i knew my classes were ones i needed rather than ones i wanted and would enjoy. no big deal, i thought. but at some point, i felt lost. it was as if these classes were just keeping me busy, and i wasn’t consciously making decisions on what i was doing and spending time on. but knowing that these classes were prerequisites i needed for classes i wanted in the future, i accepted it as what it was. despite that, i felt so lost and stressed out about a month into the semester. on top of classes i didn’t enjoy and weekly lab meetings for research i got involved in (i also remember there being a stretch of 6 weeks where i had one midterm each week) i was traveling off campus so much, many times to Boston and a handful to New York City, for events. while it was good i got out of middletown, it was tiring too. i remember there being a weekend where i visited Boston with an excuse of “escaping because i was too stressed out”.

from that "escape" trip

i feel like i never really had the time to slow down and take account of things during the semester. there was always a pressure to spend time productively, be it doing work or spending time with friends. it was probably made worse because i've found that i really need routine in my life, and after settling on one at the beginning of the semester, it's difficult to actively change it. and so i feel like i’m stuck pushing myself through things i might not necessarily enjoy and that i couldn’t reconcile why i was doing what i was. it was like living life on autopilot: completing the problem sets i had every week, making progress on research for the recurring meetings each week, and so on.

things did get better in terms of classes and research though. my algorithms class became much more interesting as we moved to dynamic programming and concepts of NP, i was much more invested in my probability theory class when we started learning about random walks and Markov chains, and what i was learning linear algebra started showing up in other classes, probability theory and even in labor economics. so it turned out that even in doing things i didn’t think i would enjoy at all, i eventually found interest in them and immediately saw the applications of what i was learning. dreading and finding zero joy in doing what is necessary should be expected. even though it’s difficult to see and convince yourself of the value at the beginning of it all, it might be worthy to push through so that you can do what you want in the future. this resonates with what adults have always been trying to impart growing up. it’s just a little more difficult to implement when you have the freedom to choose what you want to do and have a stake in the opportunity cost because you are no longer being forced to do things.

i think it still comes down to balance. setting yourself up for the future and finding joy in what you do now. i suppose they are not mutually exclusive, but certainly not everything fulfills both. given recent events, life is pretty scary. nothing, even the next day, is for sure. i’m at a point in life where i’m not really sure what things are going to look like in the next few years before i graduate, where i’ll be my junior year, or even what i’ll do next summer. it’s worrying, but all i know i can do now is to put in the work, have trust, and find some joy while i’m at it.

not chasing perfection

this feels like a cope but, i’m trying to put aside perfection for genuine learning. if i’ve learned new ways to think about concepts and problems, that should be a success even if exams and grades don’t fully reflect this. at some point, i think that chasing perfect grades can become a proxy for what you actually want. i know this all too well from singapore's education system. it all became rote memorization and knowing how to solve a problem because i've practised it so many times. it was next to zero actual learning. i'm not sure if it's college in general or this specific environment, but i think that i've actually learned. chasing grades also makes you think you are achieving something, when you could have spent your time elsewhere. specifically, doing research this semester that was unpaid and not for credit would have never happened had i chosen to prioritize time spent on getting As, but the research work has helped me learn so many more skills relevant to the industry i want to explore. i guess it comes back to balance again, learning concepts and ways of thinking in classes, but not spending all your time optimizing for the perfect grade but instead using the time to do something more fulfilling. understandably, it's different if your goal is grad school where grades matter a lot. for myself, i know that's not what i want. so from here on i want to be more in control of getting what i want out of what i'm doing and not chasing artificial goals.

unexpected lasts and byes

i'm looking forward to next semester because i'll be doing a lot more things i actually want to. but i'm also dreading it because it'll come with many lasts. i already saw some of that this semester, and that made it feel real. many friends are graduating, so many things i'm doing with them may be lasts, and things will look so different after the coming semester. despite the amount of times i've been through this, i'm still not very good at it. it'll be a tough semester to get through, but i hope it'll be a lot more than just getting through it.

the snow remains as something that never gets old, not yet at least