on cloud9

I can't believe I'm actually writing this, but I got a co-op offer from Microsoft for SWE :)

Freshman year me would have never believed this lmao. I was stressing so bad and thought I was so behind when in reality I was doing really well for myself. Even though I'm probably not the smartest person, I think my consistency and work ethic is what got me this far. 

I think I'll be one of the few second-years at Microsoft, since the people who got in are part of a Seattle program and they were basically guaranteed to get it because they're in that program. They are all third years. I heard from a friend that I'm the only person he knows who's outside of the Seattle program who got in, so I'm just a little worried that I'll be an outcast when I get there. Since I'm going to be in the Seattle area for 6.5 months, I really want to make sure that my social life exists, even if it's just one friend. I am so incredibly grateful for this opportunity and am still in shock that I got the offer. Sometimes I doubt myself and feel that I don't deserve this since there were definitely smarter people than me who applied and didn't get it, but yeah I'm not sure what to think. I don't know if it's luck, hard work, or intelligence. I think luck was definitely a factor because one of my interviewers is part of a team at Microsoft that's doing something similar to what I'm doing at Siemens - enterprise stuff I believe. I told her that I recognized some terms like PO (purchase order), PR (purchase request), etc and she seemed really interested after I said that. I have a really strong feeling that she'll be my manager (Miki Wang) :)

Life is just really good right now. I made some new friends this semester and have pretty strong bonds with my friends from freshman year. I go to Davenport B pretty often since a lot of my friends are dorming there together. I'm currently rooming with Nancy (in Burstein 219), and I've gotten a lot closer with her. I'm so glad I roomed with her because I feel like I definitely would not see her as often and gotten this close if I didn't room with her. I'm going to miss my friends a lot when I leave for Seattle. I feel like I've built a community I can call home here, and I'm feeling the same dread that I felt when I was moving to Boston for the first time before freshman year. It's a weird feeling, but I realize that I feel this way mainly because of the people that I've grown so close to and care so much about. 

I know I'll be back, but it's going to be probably 10 months until I see them again. And a lot of my friends will probably be fall cycle, so they might not even be in Boston when I come back.

I'm really proud of how far I've come in almost every aspect of my life. High school me would have never believed that I had achieved this much. I made a complete 180 in my life. From almost no friends to having several friend groups and communities where I am comfortable being myself. A lot of my friends look up to me and I'm really glad that I can be that person they can ask for guidance or help. Since my last post, I've also been pretty consistent with the gym and don't look as much of a twig anymore.

To whoever's writing my story, thank you.

3/12/25

i have a lot on my mind rn. ik there's days where you're up and down, but I don't understand why down days carry a weight that is so much heavier than good days. 

so for fundies (cs 2510), I have a partner that I work on for assignments. she's my friend and she's fun to hang around with. she's just a really bad work partner, though. I'm so frustrated because I've been making all the efforts to meet with her at least more than a day before the hw deadline, not just a couple of hours before it's due. this means that I do most of the hw in case we don't submit on time. so for one of our homework's, we got a 0 on it because I accidentally used the static keyword for one of the methods in the utils class. i worked so hard on this fucking assignment just for it to get discarded because of ONE keyword. i don't fucking understand the grading system and the logic behind it. you're going to penalize me for using a keyword that is COMMON PRACTICE in the REAL WORLD??? gtfo of here. idek why I'm so frustrated. i knew that spending more time out of class to work on stuff that will actually get me a fucking job will pay off in the long run, and so far it's definitely paid off. i have a summer internship lined up and I don't think that would have been possible if I spent as much time in the books as I did last semester. i had a 4.0 gpa last semester, but at what cost? i got rejected from almost every single internship I applied to. 

this semester, I've made sure to work on developing my skills and resume and when the motherfuckers who make fun of ur gpa don't have a job they'll see why. gpa isn't everything

I just realized this might be an insane level of copium oh my god I'm so mad

anyways I wanna talk more about my summer internship at LSQ - I'm so glad it's an actual company and not some small ass startup not willing to pay me anything. the CTO's name is Shawn Wen and he's worked at Microsoft and at amazon alexa so that's actually really cool. hoping to learn a lot. I'm the youngest one on the team lol

I applied on handshake and shawn said he chose 10 ppl to interview (I think he was only picking from northeastern). i was the last person he picked, and then he chose 3-4 more people to interview. he then chose 2 ppl. one of them was me and another was a grad student lmfao 

ok before was last night I'm writing again

idk if I'm suffering from success rn bc I'm getting so many interviews. i just got one from cyberark which has like 250k+ followers on LinkedIn. i doubt ill get the role but if I do maybe I just do that one instead of LSQ? idk

anyways I have to do AI BootCamp hw now

ttyl future me!

College :)

 It's been almost a year since my last blog, which is kinda insane. I never knew that this was where'd I be and what I'd be doing a year ago. 

From my last blog, I thought I was going to be a CS + Math major and that I thought I would switch out if I thought that CS wasn't useful. Well, I predicted that right LMAOOO

I'm just a pure CS major now with a concentration in AI and a minor in math. I'm planning to get my PlusOne in AI, which I can still graduate in 4 years with. 

For what I'm involved in, I'm a software engineer at SGA, software developer at NER, and research member for the AI Perception Lab for AINU.

I also just won FinHacks 2025 for best diversity hack and best web/app! Super proud of what I've accomplished so far.

I really wish I accepted Ameresco's internship offer but whatever, it's probably better for my work ethic to keep applying. 

Anyways, college has been really good to me so far. I made some really great friends (shoutout Emma, Nancy, Angelina, Sam, Kate, Biak, Stamili)! COLLEGE IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN HIGH SCHOOL

I just wanna write some random thoughts down

The dining hall food is mid, I wake up early just to eat breakfast in the dining hall when there's barely anyone there, I have at least 4 Kraft mac and cheese / dumplings from outtakes every week, I hate racket and I think java is actually pretty nice, my prof for linear is so confusing, my stats prof goes too fast, my cyber prof is a d1 yapper, my fundies prof is pretty ok, I made deans list for last semester

I hope I get an internship this summer. I will get an internship this summer.

Thanks for reading, future me

See ya next time (prob in a couple months who knows)