2024 was the year of my first year of university, it’s been an eventful year of a lot of new friendships, achievements, and more. Here’s my recap.
January
I got a flat tire on January 1st, 2024.
January was a fun month, I had the opportunity to go to MIT Reality Hack where I met tons of cool people! This was my first time going on a big trip by myself, this is also where I stayed at a $15 / night couch. TeenTechSF had their annual Global Youth Summit this month, aside from this nothing major happened.
01/25/2024 - Me taking a photo in front of the iconic MIT building
01/30/2024 - Myself, Samuel Tang, Sunny (Sunrui) Lu at our Airbnb before I left after MIT Reality Hack 2024
February
February was another eventful month, I got to see my friend Varun who I hadn’t seen since August of last year. We both went to TreeHacks (although only one of us was accepted to go). After TreeHacks I volunteered at my local elementary school’s Outdoor Ed, where I got to meet lots of new people and make memories with friends (like sneaking out of the cabin after quiet hours).
Honestly, this was a great experience everything in life up until this point kind of felt like a punch to the gut and this experience kind of gave me a well needed break from the world and allowed me to reflect.
02/19/2024 - Myself and Varun taking a photo with the Golden Gate Bridge after an eventful Treehacks
02/20/2024 - Myself, Pavan, and Arya volunteering as Camp Counselors at the 5th Grader Outdoor Ed
March
I started getting bored of school at this point, all of the final grades had been sent out. I had gotten quite a few acceptances (and rejections) at this point. To cure my boredom I started going to random high school hackathons in the area. I got recognized for various reasons at a few of them. I had a lot of fun doing these hackathons as most of the time I did them with friends or got to meet people I wouldn’t meet on a daily basis.
I relaxed, played badminton, and enjoyed high school.
03/24/2024 - Myself and Davyn winning 1st place at BluHacks in Milpitas
April
This was the turning point.
University of Waterloo had been one of the universities I desired to attend the most, because of it’s focus on application, theory, and their students being some of the best I have met in the industry.
The issue was I had to obtain a 88% to maintain my offer. This normally wouldn’t be an issue but I had an admission average of 88%, and an average of 78% when I received the offer. I started taking school seriously again after this…
I had booked tickets to attend LAHacks 2024 before I received my offer and I wanted to cancel to focus on school but I decided to go anyway. We won a sponsor prize and it was a lot of fun!
04/01/2024 - My admission offer from the University of Waterloo for Honours Software Engineering Co-op
May
It was my birthday, I graduated high school, and I MADE MY WATERLOO CONDITIONAL!
Graduating high school did not feel like a huge deal to me, it had been an accumulation of what I did for the past 4 years but I didn’t really feel proud for some reason. Perhaps it’s because I had already set my eyes to the next thing I wanted to achieve.
An hour before graduation I went to go pick up an old friend Brayton, I wanted him to be there at my graduation as he had never seen a proper graduation (neither at his high school or NYU). While waiting for him to exit the BART station I had my car running on battery and was running the fan. The battery being 9 years old understandably was depleted of all its charge. I had to request a lady to use her Triple A subscription to call someone to jump start my car. An eventful graduation for sure.
05/31/2024 - My car getting jumped by Triple A an hour before my graduation
05/31/2024 - My High School Graduation from Foothill High School in Pleasanton California
June
I wasted no time, right after graduation I started going to a crap ton of tech events in SF. I attended so many I lost count, but going to the UC Berkeley AI Hackathon was definitely a highlight alongside making friends in the Bay Area.
This is the month that JAMHacks took place, unfortunately due to circumstances I could not attend but I did my best to participate virtually
I got to meet Scott Wu this month
I also went to a decent amount of tech bros parties, I don’t drink so it was just me talking to all the interns in the Bay Area.
06/14/2024 - Linner with the goat Vishnu Satish
06/05/2024 - Meeting Scott Wu at HackAIThon
July
More tech events, I had Davyn join me for a lot of them. We also played A LOT of Pokemon Go. A lucky trade with Davyn even helped me get my lucky Garchomp :))
I met Guillermo Rauch this month
07/13/2024 - Myself and Davyn Pokemon Hunting at University of California, Berkeley
07/30/2024 - Met Guillermo Rauch (CEO of Vercel) at his fireside chat
August
More tech bro parties, went to a keynote where Mark Zuckerberg talked, met Andrew Ng, and said my final goodbyes before heading north to Canada to attend the University of Waterloo.
08/06/2024 - Went to a keynote by Mark Zuckerberg (try finding me in the picture)
08/24/2024 - Met Andrew Ng at a hackathon in SF
08/26/2024 - Myself and Yumeng Liu meeting up one last time before I head off to Canada for university
September
Start of University, a new experience, around people who’re very motivated in the same things as me. I met a lot of people I already knew and made a lot of new friends. Below are pictures of me meeting my JAMHacks Team / other friends. Definitely one of the most eventful months of the year
08/30/2024 (pretend this is in september) - Myself and Ching Lam Lau transporting my mini fridge
08/31/2024 - Most of my 1A Software Engineering Class, class photo before the start of the term
09/02/2024 - Myself and Minglun Shao at the entrance of V1
09/02/2024 - Myself, Reese Chong, and Rachael Ni at SLC
09/03/2024 - Photo with the edcomb
09/10/2024 - My JAMHacks team for JAMHacks 8 (alongside some JAMHacks 7 execs)
09/14/2024 - Myself, Emma Shi, and Aayush Grover building the Aura Tracker (Also moments before the spicy chip challenge)
October
My first midterm was already upon us before I knew it, WHYY. We all walked in the midterm with happy faces, why be unhappy unless life gives a reason to be (when the midterm grade comes out).
I saw northern lights for the first time in my life, fell asleep at Waterloo Park, persevered through hell week, celebrated Diwali with Kush.
I also judged at a local high school hackathon (yes I called it a hackathon Brian) and was semi-interested in Rock Climbing
10/07/2024 - Photo before our first midterm (Math 135)
10/10/2024 - Northern Lights in Waterloo
10/26/2024 - 2 Homeless UofT students sleeping over (Varun and Sungjin)
10/31/2024 - Me and Kush on Diwali dressed up in Kurtas going to go to the Mandir
November
November was a chill month (comparatively to all the other months of university), a lot of studying took place, participated in a few hackathons, and enjoyed myself.
The only crazy thing we did was bring back 500-600 dollars worth of food from Toronto on a 200 dollar Uber for our classmates at Waterloo to eat.
09/17/2024 - Myself, Kevin, Thomason, and Rohan at Microbots Hackathon
11/24/2024 - Feeding the broke university students in the V1 Caf
11/30/2024 - Myself, Emma Xing, and Sarah Lieng at Hack Western
December
Finals month, week, whatever you want to call it. Normally this would be the least eventful time period as most people are studying for exams however I was not lucky enough to say the same.
A classmate of mine Shaan Nair took his own life, Shaan was a good human being through and through and I genuinely don’t have a single negative thing to say about him. He was kind, smart, and passionate like the rest of us. We moved in together, he was the first person from Software Engineering I met at UWaterloo. We got lunch a few times and talked I would have never guessed he was in a state to do self harm. He would always crack jokes, has a bunch of friends, and was doing excellent in Academics.
I went to his cremation, I had no intention of going initially since I had a final the same day but when I found out no one else from Waterloo had intentions of going I felt like it was my duty to. The worst thing for a parent to experience in this scenario would be to think that their child was not wanted because no one from our school came, and that’s why he took his own life. That is simply not true. Shaan was a great and very smart individual, it is our loss as UWaterloo SE and as a school as a whole that we lost him. I hope he’s in a better place.
We had a snowball fight, prepped for finals, I went to India, and I fell asleep in class for the first time in my life…
12/03/2024 - Myself, Moulik, and Pavithran taking a photo with the goat Math 115 TA
12/12/2024 - Myself and Faisal asleep at the CS 137 review session (in my defense this was after 2 all nighters)
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12/15/2024 - SE 1A End of Term Class Photo
Reflection
Technical Reflection
Personal Reflection
2024 was a rollercoaster, from having one of my lowest lows in the beginning of the year to it getting better overtime with setbacks I learned a lot.
Throughout 2024 the belief that it’s always about the people you’re around was something I learned to understand
I have always been a people’s person but I think it’s more than that. I think it’s understanding that good and bad times will come and go it’s more about the people you’re around. Surrounding myself with some of the best people even if we’re doing nothing is fun, it’s always the people, the company that makes or breaks everything
I started strongly doubting this at one point of the year. Why should I care about others so much if they don’t care about me? It’s about finding the right people which comes through time, there will be people like that, they don’t always have bad intentions but when you get hurt by someone you care about a lot it can almost break your trust in people. But on the other hand if that person feels the same way then you have a lifelong friend, someone you can always fall back on. That’s the price you pay in the search of the “real ones”
“Friendship means little when it’s convenient”