Happy new year! :D

This year felt so short compared to before, maybe because im getting old, so time flows faster in perspective?

Well, first things first, lets look at my previous new years resolution:

  1. ✓ Maintain 4.0 GPA: I was able to maintain a 4.0 in both semesters suprisingly easy. The math classes that I thought I would struggle like honor linear algebra or number theory didn’t really pose that much of a threat to me, and I actually felt my load was quite managable most of the time!
  2. ✓ Double Major in CS + MATH: Ok, technically I haven’t declared the math major because im lazy, but I was able to finish difficult math classes with ease, so I would say that this resolution is fulfilled :D
  3. ✗ Doing at least 5 problems everyday on CF: Well, I soon realized that doing competitive programming isn’t really worth it, so I stopped doing it.
  4. ✗ CF Master (or at least CM): Same reason as above. Honestly, I think it’s quite a shame that I wasn’t able to get to a decently high rank, as I spent quite some time on competitive programming through my high school career. But its okay, as I still learned a lot from the experience.
  5. ✗ Qualify for NAC: Same as above.
  6. ✓ Get Research: Not only I did research, I also published a first author paper at 2024 IEEE Conference on Big Data! I think I haven’t written a blog on that, but I should as it is one of the big achievements I did this year.
  7. ✓ Get Internship: I was able to secure a NSF Research Experience for Undergrad (REU) Research Internship at UW Eau-Claire. I have written a blog on that before so if you are interested go check it out! The research I did here was the one that I published and attended the conference.

So, it seems that apart from the ones about competitive programming, I was able to do all my previous resolutions! Yay!

I would consider this year as a great success, rating it 95/100. I tried by best at a lot of stuff and they paid off, and even though I feel like I slacked of left and right sometimes, I’m still quite proud of my achievements.

Now, let’s write this the resolutions for this year:

  1. Maintain 4.0 GPA
  2. Build/Maintain a big scale open-source project
  3. Get a research scholarship
  4. Do more research
  5. Get an internship

I actually can’t think of that much interesting resolutions, as I feel like my life is already really nice right now. Again, happy new year guys!