year 2, spring quarter UCSC
I'm officially halfway 2/3 done with college and I'm writing this post a china-trip + week-into-internship after the quarter ended. Let's reflect over quarter 6 out of 9 presuming that im graduating in 3 years. Honestly I'm porb not gonna write much cuz idk what to write about.
Living off-campus
Not much new news to talk about. I went on a lot of runs like 2x a week sometimes more this quarter and rly enjoyed the lsat months living here so close to the ocean. Oh yea I moved out in the last week as we are gonna switch to some apartments in capitola for next year. My new place is pretty nice, I'm probably gonna have a single, its fairly spacious, the rent is insanely cheap, but its so far away. I'm pretty scared for next year living so far away but I will have a car which helps but living in capitola which is just straight up isolated in a city away from campus will be an experience and will probably test me.
It was annoying to pack up everything and move everything and all the logistics especially since I had a flight to china 2 days after and everything was moving so fast but we got it done and yeah.
I can't really recall much else cuz its been a while, but I went to hilltop apartments to hang out a couple of times with my friend who would pick me up and I also did continue cooking like the usual and you know i actually think i gained weight this quarter cuz there were many dinners where i ate a ton and i felt like i ate way too much but i never weighed myself. I'm normally 150 lbs but after china trip I was 165 lbs which is A HUGE DIFFERENCE I've never been this heavy in my life before I've never been heavier than my dad before like im legit fat like yea i can def feel it so right now im trynna ease it down but anyway those 15 lbs didnt all come from china im guessing it had to have come from ucsc but at the same time I was exercising a lot like I would hit the gym and go on good runs and play basketball so maybe it was just china and eating all that.
Academics
3 classes:
- CSE 150 (Intro to Comp Networks)
- AM 100 (Pretty much just complex and real analysis)
- THEA 80N (online async GE (GOAT MICKEY CLASS))
I'm ngl i do feel a bit like egotistical abt the grades but the excuse is that its a tradition and were back to normal now with the grades we have all A's even tho before finals I was very skeptical that this would happen. Ok let's talk about my classes
CSE 150
I took this class because its useful CS knowledge, fulfills a CS minor elective, and also a lot of my friends were taking it. And this class ended up being rly good useful CS knowledge, as a lot of the terminology and concepts are actually used in my internship so far like the basics.
So this class was honestly not bad time commitment especially cuz I would consistently go to the computer lab like 2-3x a week and get good work in and didnt procrastinate and i learned a lot thru doing the labs there and asking the TAs for questions. However I didn't learn much from lectures, I had to self-study all the concepts a week before the midterm and final. Idk the professor just isnt engaging and talks slow ig and like when I try to listen to lecture I start thinking about other things and I end up missing all the things. I do think that if you have discipline u can sit in the front and shut down ur phone and force urself to listen but like yea I skipped a lot of the lectures once I was set for attendance.
Honeslty overall learned a lot and enjoyed the content and think this might be one of the best CS classes ive taken so far. It was pretty rough towards midterm and finals and preparing my cheat sheet and everything but yea
AM 100
This class was yet another really interesting STEM class. By far the most interesting and engaging AM class I took, though it was very hard. My professor was very young in fact we wrent even supposed to call him professor cuz i think he was still doing his phd or something.
Anyway if anyone does math you've seen that thing where e^(i*pi) = -1 and i thought i woudl never learn exaclty why. Turns out like halfway into the class we just naturally and elegantly derived it. I still dont like fully understand it but that euler's theorem is so useful and like the basis to solve so many practice problems. I'm writing this post like 4 months after the quarter ended so I forgot a lot of the concepts but I learned a lot and I have a lot of respect for thsi subject of math of real analysis and complex analysis. It was so hard but my professors grading was insane like he gave us full credit on the midterms and finals if we even knew like half of the problem it felt like. If you forgot to put +C he didnt care like its not even -1 and like I literally got like 37/38 on my midterm and 100% ace on my final and its not cuz im crazy smart its cuz his grading is so lenient so that REALLY helped in a class like this. I also spent a good amount of time with a friend called Sui and the homeworks were really long and sometimes I would fall behind the lecture, just that usual college grind you know.
THEA 80N
This class is walt disney, online Async GE and it think it set the record for my easiest class at UCSC. This clas was actually so easy bro it was actually 0 stress and like a 1-2 hr time commitment per week max. It's so mickey and i did so little in this class that i forgot what happened cuz its been 4 months. I could dig up the assignments and stuff but theres rly no point talking abt this class its so easy
Conclusion
So I finished like the 2nd half of this post in October like 2 weeks into my year 3 fall quarter LOL its so late and yea cuz of this i dont have anything else to talk about in this post. My 2nd year at UCSC finished and it was certainly an experience, pretty much a very isolating experience with some really big lows but then once I got an internship offer it just feltl ike life was sunshine and rainbows and so much to be grateful and proud for. It felt like ive been seen like ive been robbed all college long by going to UCSC when I'm literally smart enough for way better schools. I had to go thru college rejection after college rejection and when i got here they didnt even accept me for CS, they accept me for Applied Mathematics. During job recruiting when I'm applying to like 20 interships every day and racking up 500 applications on my spreadsheet I'm just like peak sad and hopeless and I felt like i didnt deserve anything and ive accomplished nothing and i wouldnt spend any money like i vividly remember would go to the grocery store and like try to minimize my costs so much obviously it wasnt that extreme but like life just felt so hopeless. Anyway that event wasnt even spring quarter actually but it sums up my 2nd year ig. I learned a lot this school year and I appreciated my 1st year so much like I made so many memories my 1st year and i didn't even know until i got to my 2nd year and starte dliving off campus and isolated. To anyone going thru similar struggles that I was going thru before i finally got an internship offer I will say that well all be fine in the end and dont worry about things out of your control and honestly my words prob wont make an impact because ppl told me the same thing and it doesnt rly change ur mindset. I will also say that once ppl "make it" it may seem like its all rainbow and butterflies but everyones struggling and im certain that that quote "comparison is thief of evil" is true cuz like u always focus on the good stuff and downplaying yourself when comparing and never realize that ppl are literally always struggling thru all their accomplishments and stabilities. But like idk who am I to talk anyway lets wrap up this post so i can go to bed, ill see you in my 3rd year Fall quarter wrapup!!
Lyric(s) of the Post:
"You will always have my heart"
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