Table of Contents
Yet another year at MIT has passed and suddenly I’m already three fourths of the way done with my undergraduate degree. Nothing that has happened in college could have been something I had expected but I am nonetheless incredibly grateful for everything that has happened and everyone that I had met so far. This particular semester has been one of immense personal and academic growth. This, in part, was because of how I realized that growth was not just from experiences that you happen to attain, but also from intention and analysis. As a part of my growth, I want to share some things I learned this semester.
To structure my reflection, I will categorize my analysis into these sections:
Academic
This semester has been one of the most challenging semesters academically since my time at MIT. For context, I took 6.1020 (Software Construction), 6.5840 (Distributed Systems), 18.05 (Intro to Probability and Statistics), and 21G.110 (Chinese 4 Streamlined). On top of this, I was working in a research lab that expected ~10 hours a week of commitment.
This semester was academically challenging for these reasons:
- 6.1020 and 6.5840 are both time-intensive classes (10-15 hours per class).
- I did not have the pre-requisites for 6.5840.
- Both 6.1020 and 6.5840 are lab-based classes (the problem sets were project-like coding assignments).
- The master’s students and PhD student I was working with were graduating that semester and wanted to submit to conference workshops.
Just the time commitment for each class was already intimidating, but on top that, 6.5840 was a class that was technically challenging. Additionally, my research was ramping up because of workshop paper deadlines that we wanted to submit to. I had already entered the semester with the mindset that I was going to struggle and I might not get the As that I’ve always strived for. As you can tell, I was doomed to fail with this fixed mindset.
The first half of the semester was definitely no less of a struggle than I had imagined it would be. I spent hours day after day trying to finish my homework and meet the next deadline. I didn’t talk to people and minimized going to social events in fear of being unable to finish my work before the deadline. Every week was a rollercoaster of stress as the stress ramped up close to the deadline and decreased when the deadline passed.
However, I always made it to the deadline with plenty of time to spare. But week after week, the crushing fear and stress would exaggerate the situation in my mind. The self-doubt and lack of self-confidence hindered my progress and ability to recognize my own achievements each week.
This realization came to me halfway through the semester. My self-doubt made it harder to work on challenging, yet interesting problems and it made me underestimate what I am capable of. Being confident in my own abilities didn’t mean that I would solve a problem in two seconds with 100% accuracy. It meant that I had the tools and skills to go about solving the problem even though it might take some time to think and learn in the process.
I also realized that learning isn’t about comparing how fast you can finish your homework compared to your peers. You can finish a problem set in 1 minute if you just copy and pasted the whole thing into ChatGPT or got the answers from a peer/TA. Copying from ChatGPT may be fast, but you don’t learn from the process of problem-solving, trying many strategies and failing, and debugging. I was used to seeing my peers start a problem set the night before it was due and then finishing it right before the deadline. I thought this meant that my peers were smarter than me, more capable of handling these classes than I was. But just like how others view you, you only see the start and the end of other people’s struggles, not the process. Instead of comparing myself to the speed in which my peers finished their homework, isn’t it a fairer comparision to compare yourself now to yourself in the past? Isn’t it a better goal to compare how much you know now than you did a semester ago?
My goal for future semesters is to continue challenging myself and pushing my limits relative to myself and not anyone else. The goal is rather to learn as much as possible and take interesting classes than to get a 5.0 GPA (C’s still get degrees, don’t they?).
Social
At the start of the semester, I probably had less than a handful of close friends. While I don’t think I met that many new people this semester, I am glad that I was able to deepen some existing friendships. I am still exploring how to navigate friendships but I am slowly learning more about myself and who I want to surround myself with.
In an interesting conversation with a friend, the idea of balancing meeting new people and deepening existing connections came up. This is still something that I am trying to explore but I found myself gravitating towards dedicating around 50% of meals on the weekdays to meeting new people and getting to know someone I haven’t talked to frequently and the other 50% of meals catching up with people I already know. On weekends, I mainly spend time with people I want to develop deeper connections with since being about to go out to eat and do things off campus can help enrich our relationship.
Another thing that I’ve learned is how to interact and keep in touch with people. I’ve tried harder this semester to show more understanding and remember things other people have told me. For example, I’ve tried harder to remember people’s birthdays and do something special for them. I’ve also tried to remember when people have mentioned they have tests so that I could say good luck to them before the test. Most importantly, I’ve tried to keep my word and remember things that were mentioned in conversation with someone about something we should do together such as going on a swim or trying a new cafe.
Overall, I have been prioritizing my social growth more and more throughout my college journey because I am realizing the importance of being able to build connections with people and the value that people have brought into my life.
Personal
Health
I haven’t done exercise regularly since coming to college and I learned the hard way how stress and sitting long hours in front of your computer takes a toll on your body. I found that running was a great social activity, hobby, and stress reliever. Best of all, it is a great cardio exercise to strengthen the body and build endurance. I was introduced to running through some friends and I thought it was really admirable that they had the discipline to run regularly. I started by running with some friends as a way to spend more time with them, but I slowly began to enjoy the activity. On a nice spring day in Boston, I couldn’t let myself waste the beautiful weather so I would decide to go on a run. I found it to be an effective way to take a break from work, enjoy the weather, and get some exercise into my week.
I have also tried to go rock climbing more often. Once again, this started off as a social activity where I wanted to spend time with people while also getting some exercise in. The more I went, the more addicted I get. Maybe next semester I’ll consider getting a membership…
Another aspect of health I’ve started focusing on is sleep. Stress has started to affect my sleep, which in turn makes me more stressed. I’ve developed a stricter sleep schedule to ensure that I have 8 hours of sleep every night and a stricter wind-down routine. I stop working around 11pm, get ready for bed by 11:30pm and wind-down for another 30 mins. This might include journaling, blogging, or reading. Anything but think about work!
Reading
Another aspect of personal growth I’ve focused on it reading. Whether it be reading about dragons that can talk or reading about how to interact with people, I found reading to be a great way to improve myself and have a little fun at the same time. Some books I loved reading are “The Will of the Many”, “Mistborn, the Final Empire”, “The Fourth Wing”, and “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck.”
Hobbies
I started blogging this semester! With inspiration from a friend and a random spark of boredome during finals week, I started this blog as a way to dump out my thoughts and pursue my interest in philosophical thinking. It’s a great way to help organize my thoughts and a great conversation topic when talking to friends.
I’m looking to try to pursue more hobbies like photography and video editing as well!