It’s almost mid 2020! Among all the craziness since the beginning of COVID-19, it has been eventful so far. It’s been almost 2 year since I’ve graduated, and worked as a Software Engineer. So I suppose it’s a good time to reflect on what I’ve learnt, and accomplished so far.
Completed the first semester of my Masters program
This was way harder than I expected. Not the content itself, but the constant nagging at the back of my head after a tiring day at work to watch lectures online, revise textbook materials, and understand heaps of research paper. Not to mention the projects were much more intense than what I experienced back in undergrad days. The three projects assigned were to reproduce experiment results from published research papers. It sounded easy at first, right? I mean since it was published, it had to be well documented, and free from ambiguity. Wrong. I should have known better from my thesis writing days that reproducing results from a research paper is a painful process, filled with “what did the author mean by…”, and “what did the author do here?”. This underestimation, mixed with procrastination ultimately resulted in rushed projects.
That said, I still managed to pull a B for this first course in this program. Not the best, but not too bad too. Just kidding, it is pretty bad. But I suppose it’s good that I learned these painful lessons earlier in the program, so I can better fine tune my schedule for the next few semesters. Oh, and there is no way that I will take more than one class per semester. It just gets too crazy.
Adapting to a pandemic
COVID-19 came knocking on 2020’s door during Chinese New Year, of all time, when I was back in Singapore. The whole situation was so intense that it really messed with my head initially. I did not really know what to feel, except frustration that this pandemic is taking away precious time I have away from my family when I was back in Singapore. First time stepping home in 2 years, and a pandemic has to happen.
It’s funny how I handled the situation, I thought I’d be more mature after going through all the tribes and tribulations of the education system, the damn army, and university. Clearly, my mental toughness did not meet the mark. I wish I was unfazed by all the chaos that’s going on, and have a better understanding of what I can control, and what I cannot. These days I try to convince myself that I will be 27 this year (oh my god I will be 27?!), and 10 years down the road I’d look back at this moment, and tell myself that this was the year that I grew the most, the year that I developed my mental toughness.
Stagnation of deliberate learning
One aspect of life that has came to a screeching halt has been my deliberate learning. In the past I used to pick up things just for the fun of it. Learn a new web framework, watch some lectures online, read a new book etc. But there’s just something about being employed that removes that hunger, and thirst for deliberate learning. I acknowledge that this has been left out of my life, and I want to get back into rhythm again.
The masters classes aren’t supposed to be part of this deliberate learning process, since it is part of what I am supposed to be doing. I’d like to do deep dives into the latest technologies, get lost in the vast amount of information that overwhelms me when I first discover a particular topic. Chase after that adrenaline rush when making the tiniest bit of progress in mastering a particular topic.
We’re halfway through 2020, and I believe that there’s still so much more left to accomplish for the rest of the year. I don’t want to buy in the idea of “just take a break we’re in a pandemic”. I want to emerge as a better version of myself through these trying times. Here’s to 3 more semesters of school, mental toughness, and deliberate learning.
Bili Xu 