It’s pretty insane that the biggest risk my parents took in their life was permanently traveling across the world without knowing what was waiting on the other side. Meanwhile, I contemplate for days on what program I should be in (SE vs CS).
It seems that taking large risks can have outsized returns, and at worst create a good story (at least in my current circumstances). As a result, I find myself taking small risks all the time—to try and stand on the shoulders of what my parents have shown me is possible.
Here is a list of risks that I’ve taken:
October 1 2024
- Risk: Chose to work at Twitter, even though I finally got offered a ML research level role that would advanced the field and be on the frontier.
- Thoughts: I have wanted to do research for a while, and I do feel like I’m in my happy place when doing research, but I just kept getting excited about having the chance to finally work on something that scales after spending the last 4 years of my life in startup land.
- Resolution: TBD
August 2024
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Risk: Decided to go to Spain on exchange instead of staying in Waterloo for 3B semester
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Thoughts: Learning wise this is the most important semester of my degree. It’s when we finally understand the fundamentals required to approach core software engineering (controls, concurrency, networks, etc). Exchange makes school less of a priority so this could be shooting myself in the foot—but I believe that it will just give me more time to self learn the things I’m interested in.
Moreover, Waterloo has finally become a place I like to be. Socratica inspires me every day. My friends are fun and ambitious. It’s the only semi-permanent place in my life anymore. The people I love are there. It feels stupid to leave all these great things behind when I have so little time left.
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Resolution: Exchange in Madrid
January 15, 2024
- Risk: co-op applications are due today and I haven’t started, but last night my friend Jonathan invited me to participate in some cutting-edge neurotech research in Pickering, so I went immediately
- Thoughts: even being in the same room as these people could yield so much learning through osmosis
- Resolution: Learned a ton, but didn’t work on this longer term because there was a lot of logistical work that would be required that wasn’t worth it for the learning.
January 1, 2024
- Risk: I’ve decided to continue working part-time at Hacksmith as my passion project for the semester. Since it is in person, it pretty much takes out 2 days from my week.
- Thoughts: opportunity cost?!?!??!?!
- Resolution: I no longer work there as of mid February. Maybe this is a risk as well, but working part-time put a ceiling on the serious learning I could do, and I thought I could do the same at school. I was able to manage the time though. Miss the team.
September 2023
- Risk: went monk-mode and disappeared from the software-internet-twitter-sphere and worked on mechanical/electrical engineering for a Youtube Channel
- Resolution: was the most intellectually stimulating period of my life. Childhood dream come true, but furthered my depression due to existential dread from non-worldly impact
May 2023
- Risk: I decided to work in Japan for 2 months while my in-person school semester in Waterloo was on
- Resolution: I got to explore one of the best countries in the world, learned to enjoy my own company, but was also the root cause of severe burnout and mild depression for the rest of the year
May 2020
- Risk: Sneaking into a private event with lots of security guards
- Resolution: Shook hands with the Prime Minister and got a slap on the hand from a chaperone