“If you don’t like where you are, move. You are not a tree.”
That’s one of my favorite quotes of all time, and I think it’s been a great reflection of my mentality coming into sophomore year. Freshman year’s done, and all the nerves and anxiety that comes with going to college for the first time isn’t here anymore. Instead, I’m just excited and ready to go.
For some background: I came into freshman year majoring in Biomedical Engineering and I was a pre-med student. While that’s sounds great, I realized over the course of my first semester at ‘SC that I hadn’t really thought at all about why I wanted to go to medical school or why I was studying biomedical engineering instead of electrical engineering, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, or computer science. Once I had that realization, and once I realized that I couldn’t think of a lot of reasons I personally wanted to pursue medicine besides the fact that my parents thought it was a “reputable job” (I’ll probably write another blog at some point about growing up in an Indian family, both the good and the bad), I decided to put pre-med to the side and start pursuing computer science alongside my biomedical engineering degree.
With that said, this semester I’ll be taking CSCI 104 and 170, which combined are one of the toughest semesters for CS students. That, as part of a 19-unit course load this semester, means that I’ll be busy. Really, really busy. That means less available time in the day every day, but I don’t think about it as losing time from other activities. Instead, I’m a strong believer that you can do everything you want to, as long as you manage expectations and cut the ‘fat’ from your day. No more time to sit around and do nothing. Time to use your time and maximize every day.
Between coursework, living in an apartment this year, starting research, being involved with VSA, Spark SC, and Hack SC, it’s going to be a busy year. With that said, I’m even more excited to go at it this year. I love this school, the people here, and the culture those two entities make coming together.
Go crush your year. Optimize for your long-term happiness. Fight on.
