A Detour
It would have been nice to post this exactly a year after I arrived at Harvard, but alas, my procrastination has bested me this time (and every other time before this).
The dog days of the strangest summer in my life are nearly over, and I feel that so much has happened, yet nothing at all. I’ll just jump into the goals I set at the end of spring semester for the summer!
1. Be uncomfortable, learn, and create something you are proud of.
Ah yes, about my summer research internship at Carnegie Mellon University’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute. I can definitely check this one off: I was very stressed at times, but that also meant a learned a lot -- not just about coding in Java, navigating codebases, debugging, and semantic parsing, but a lot about my resiliency and the interests I hope to pursue. In the end, I was proud of all the work that I done, though I was rather burnt-out and felt unfulfilled in other areas of my life -- the impact aspect, and also the fact that I was just staring at NullPointerExceptions in code for days on end! For a full reflection on my internship, I described it in (excruciating) detail here!
2. Be more honest with yourself about what you want to do.
So, 3-months-ago Vanessa really knew what she was talking about when she wrote these, huh. Indeed, I have had a crisis the past month or so about what I am passionate about, and, I have realized a few points: one, that I enjoy learning languages more than I do learning about linguistics. For so long, that was my brand: the one who wants to study linguistics and become some polyglot coder genius. But the rosiness around this is fading, and I’m left with just so many questions about what I really want to do, or at least try.
I actually mentioned this in my former post, but my current plan is now to do Computer Science with a secondary in Ethnicity, Migration and Rights. I described my thinking to my friend as this: CS by itself is very isolated and theoretical: a set of skills and frameworks of thinking. And linguistics can also be very theoretical, like using propositional logic to model semantic meaning. For me, that’s not what I love about language - I love crafting sentences that make you feel, I love slotting together puzzle pieces and connecting with people of other cultures that I never otherwise would connect with.
In essence, I felt like I was floating away from reality. Like the semantic meaning example, or the bag-of-words model in natural language processing (converting text into vectors using the frequency of the words; source). Total disclaimer: there are so many NLP/computational linguists out there that are so passionate about what they do (I know: I went to the ACL2020 conference), and they do amazing work, from neural machine translation to fake news detection to analysis of COVID-19 medical research papers. But I realized that it wasn’t for me.
That’s why I wanted to find something more grounded in the human experience; hence, Ethnicity, Migration & Rights. And after the resurgence of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, and learning more about Asian America, I knew that I wanted to leverage my humanities skills/interests and think critically about our rich diversity, our erased histories, our tremendous bravery, the injustices we face, how far we’ve come, and how much more we need to fight for.
(Ah, and as for Computer Science: I do want to explore tech, and I want to try for a Software Engineering internship this summer and give it my best shot. However, the imposter syndrome is real… Moreover, I started getting thoughts about exploring less technical aspects of technology, such as HCI or product management. More on that later.)
3. Connect with people you care about.
Honestly? I think I did a pretty good job, considering my horrific text-back skills. I managed to keep in touch with those I most care about, through FaceTimes and Zoom work sessions and iMessage (read: Facebook Messenger is my worst enemy). I was actually able to reconnect with and have genuine conversations with some college and high school acquaintances I didn’t have time to talk with in person, even if over just a quick call or text message! It does make my heart a little fuzzy. And, I am a lot closer to my family :)
4. Be kind to yourself; take care of your health.
I think I have improved so much in this regard. I recently achieved a huge recovery milestone with a health issue I was struggling with (more here). Now, both physically and mentally, I am in a much better place. After sharing my story on Facebook/Instagram, I was so blown away by all the love and support I received -- but also, the private reach-outs and messages that told me that I was not alone. Having this support system was so uplifting in my healing journey, and helped me find that courage I needed to pull myself out of the mess I was in. If you offered me one of those kind words, thank you.
(However, I am still a work in progress! And with regards to comparing my productivity and successes to others. That’s okay - I’m working on it :) )
5. DO your hobbies and what you enjoy.
I’d give myself a 6/10 on this. I did read more API-written books (Pachinko by Min Jin Lee; Sour Heart by Jenny Zhang, 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami though I didn’t quite enjoy it), but I ended up only writing a poem that wound up in the Quaranzine (read here). We were able to bake a bit and post on @beluga_bbs, though I think any time I could’ve had on hobbies were spent on applying to fall opportunities (sigh…).
6. Better advocate for what you need/want/believe in (recurring)
I think I have learned to advocate for myself during my internship, especially when I felt aimless and wanted to set up a structure with my mentor to track progress and lay out a goal timeline. I have gotten much better at putting my beliefs forward when talking with my family as well! However, on the leadership aspect, I still have work in this regard. I feel pretty burnt out, so I hope that I can more directly communicate my opinions, and also not overburden myself with work.
7. Take detours.
Have I taken detours? Perhaps not enough.
And now, drumroll please… for a list of fall, leave-of-absence goals. This will be very similar to the previous (hey, I did say this was a work in progress)!
1. Stay connected with people you care about; try to connect with new people
A continuation of the previous, mixed in with some possible networking :)
2. Better advocate for yourself and set your boundaries (recurring)
Especially in organizations, such as Bluebonnet, WECode, the Wave, perhaps TAPAS! I do want to take a step back, even though I am on a leave.
3. Take better care of your health; mentally + physically.
Fixing your sleep schedule (impossible at this point) and also giving yourself space to just think -- we love alone time! Also keeping up the work that I’ve done, with regards to my health.
4. Stay disciplined and push yourself (to a healthy degree).
I think a major weakness of mind is that I am quite easily derailed, especially when there are so many things to do and worry about. I hope I can set a schedule for myself and allow me to learn and do at my fullest potential.
5. Create and do something you’re proud of and passionate about.
Ideally, creating a React-based application about an interesting topic; and also doing impactful work, like volunteering with Bluebonnet Data to work with down-ballot progressive and Democratic campaigns!
6. Dare to learn what you are genuinely excited to learn, and learn for the sake of learning.
I can’t decide on this pecking order of sooo many cool courses to take online, but the Human-Computer Interaction edx certification course list sounds really exciting! I’d also like to maintain my Japanese to some degree, also learning about International women’s health… argh, so many things to do!
7. Study for SWE Interviews.
To be completely honest, I have barely started, and I already feel so dumb. There are so many smart kids out there who spew algorithms in their sleep, and it feels like I’ll never match up. So, with this time off my hands, I will finish the Zero to Mastery Data Structures & Algorithms course, do Leetcode and Hackerrrank, and give it my best shot.
8. Take detours; understand better what you aim for and what you hope to do.
I guess taking a leave-of-absence is one? Though based on my summer response, I didn’t do so hot on this one. It is just so hard to do anything for the sake of doing it for fear of not having tangible results at the end.
And finally, a collection of random events:
Bad Memories
Long days of debugging and feeling unmotivated
Finding out we weren’t on campus
Many rejections / or ghost rejections from internships by auto-email
Good Memories
Learning dances with my sister
Regular coffee runs with my sis
Learning how to ride a pennyboard
Actual mall shopping trip
Hello Kitty truck at Garden State Plaza
Going to Longwood Gardens
Becoming closer with my family (mahjong nights)
Virtual escape rooms with friends
Celebrating my friend’s birthday via Zoom
The Quaranzine launch party
Netflix! Umbrella Academy, The Last Airbender/Legend of Korra, Aggretsuko
Reconnecting with friends, and connecting with new ones!
This is it, folks. Tomorrow marks the first day of classes for Harvard’s fall semester, and I’m not attending.
I hope this is a detour worth taking! See you on the other side :)