Well, it’s been a month since the semester ended, and I think I should maybe write some stuff about my sophomore year! I’ll start from recaping what my goals were in my freshman year, do some recap for sophomore year, and finally give some goals for junior year.

Recap on Freshman Goals

Okay, so honestly now I look back at what my goals were, they are quite ambitious and funny, things clearly did not go completely towards what I expected.

Maintain 4.0 GPA ✓

This one was not that difficult to accomplish fortunately. I’ll give more details on my academic performance in the next section.

Obtain Sophomore Research Fellowship ✗

This one is a bit of a shame, as I know I could definitely get it if I could apply in time. It took a suprisingly amount of time to finally join the professor’s lab, and by that time there just wasn’t enough time for us to create something for the fellowship. It’s alright though, there are more chances in the future!

Obtain a National Level Scholarship ✗

Unfortunately, I went to the office for scholarships and they basically told me I had to have a recommendation from a mentor in the university, which back then I was still working on that, so we will have to wait for next time.

Get an Internship ✓

I got a hybrid ML/AI research/project oriented intern position! It’s pretty interesting and I’ll definitely make a post on it after the session!

Start Investing ✗

Well, this one is solely on me. I really need to push myself more deliberately to accomplishing these goals.

Workout ✓/✗

I’m actually not very sure if this one is fulfilled or not. I’ve been exercising quite a lot recently since I want to run a 10K next semester, but apart from that I didn’t exercise at all during the semester.

Publish 5 Papers ✗

I’m not sure why I thought this is doable in freshmen year. It doesn’t really work like that lol! I’ll be grateful if I could get 5 papers out before graduation.

Be Confident and Love Yourself ✓

I think my mental health and confidence has definitely improved much more compared to before, thanks to all of my good friends around me.

I was able to do around half of them, which I am pretty satisfied!

Recap on Sophomore Year

Academics

I honestly think I deserve a 10/10 for academics this year. I engaged more on academic rigor, with classes like combinatorics, number theory, probability and my first 500-level math class—abstract algebra! I also worked with 1 grad AI class, some very interesting gen-eds and suprisingly difficult classes like computer graphics. In the end, I was able to endure through all of that with a 4.0! Nice!

Social

I’ll give this an 8.5/10 for my social aspects. I think that I did a decent job, found some new friends, and have really prioritised hanging out with people that I cherish, especially since a lot of them are graduating soon.

Research

I’ll give myself a 6 to 7 out of 10 this year. Even though I didn’t publish anything, I still surveyed a lot of papers and brain stormed a lot of topics for preparation. I definitely could’ve done more though, but it’s okay :D

Summary

I would say this year is a solid 8.5/10, a steady improvement compared to freshman year. Great job me! I am very excited to see what Junior year will bring.

Wishes and Goals for Junior Year

  1. Maintain 4.0: It will only get more challenging from here, as I plan to take some difficult math/cs courses and graduate courses. Good luck!

  2. Obtain the Hilldale Research Scholarship: This is basically the junior version of the sophomore research fellowship. Unlike last year, I have a mentor now and also research going, so it should be decently doable.

  3. Obtain a National Level Scholarship: Again, a bit of a stretch but would be really nice if I could get it!

  4. Get into the ML Alignment & Theory Scholars (MATS) Program: I’m not sure if this is easier than winning a national scholarship, but the MATS program is highly competitive, with mentors from OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepMind and all the big names that we know. It would be amazing if I could somehow get in!

  5. Exercise more, Ideally be able to run a half marathon: Currently I’m aiming for a sub-hour 10k next semester, so I want a more ambitious goal at the end of the year.

  6. Invest: I wasn’t able to do this this year, so hopefully junior year will be different (wink).

  7. Develop 2 more hobbies: I want a hobby that is unique and interesting. A couple choices I am thinking about is mountain climbing, baking, and lockpicking!

  8. Procrastinate less and develop a planning pipeline: I’ve been reading a lot of Neel Nanda’s blog posts lately, and they have been super insightful. I hope I can implement some of them in my junior year.

  9. Publish at least 1 paper: Unlike before, I want the papers I publish to actually be passionate, insightful and one that I am proud of.

  10. Be confident and love yourself: You can do it! :D