Happy New Year!

Apparently I only made one post in all of 2011.  A few updates:

• Danny and Tianyi both graduated last year
• We picked up a new roommate, Senan
• Tom and Duncan are applying for astrophysics/physics grad schools
• Senior spring!!!

After a summer in banking, I realized that I wasn’t actually very interested in finance.  I came into college with ideas of picking stocks for a career but grew disillusioned along the way.  Stock-picking is fun, to be sure, but I like it more as a hobby.  Banking and trading are not that related to fundamental investing, so I decided to focus on finding a tech or consulting job during senior recruiting.  Fall recruiting proved to be much better for me than junior recruiting, and that can probably be attributed to more interview experience and practice.  In the end, I got my top choice at a large tech firm, and I continue to feel very lucky.  Switching to computer science was definitely one of the best decisions that I made in college.

As for senior spring plans, Tom and I want to rent Zipcars every few weekends and explore New England.

I’ve been home for almost two weeks now, and it’s been very relaxing to be able to read and exercise on a regular schedule.

The Ship of Theseus

When I had my wisdom teeth extracted three summers ago, I specifically requested that they be given back to me in a jar. I still have those teeth at my house.

This past summer I got a root canal and a crown for one of my molars. Now I have a perfect, decay-proof, pain-immune tooth. I begin to wonder how feasible it would be to replace most or all of the human body with superior artificial prosthetic parts, and whether I’ll see this starting to happen within my own lifetime.

I’m developing a new fantasy: as I grow older, I think it would be fascinating to have my bones replaced with artificial substitutes, one at a time. I’d keep my bones in a safe collection, until one day I could assemble them. I would then be able to show people my own skeleton.

Summer!

The first several weeks of this semester were quite possibly the most stressful ones I’ve ever had.  Junior recruiting season for me was marked by an exorbitant number of rejections.  In the end, I got an internship at an investment bank in Chicago, and the people there seem very nice, so I look forward to working with them this summer.

One positive aspect of recruiting (and probably the only one) was the inducement of self-reflection.  I have never delved so deeply into what my true desires are, and I feel more complete with regards to self-understanding as a result of the process.  Will investment banking be a good choice for me right after college, or will I be happier going with a startup?  Even if I am immediately happier working at a startup, which decision is better in the long term?  I suppose I’ll be able to answer these questions better after this summer.

And yes, I have been neglecting this blog for the entire semester.  It’s now summer, and I have a week of free time before I go to Chicago, but I’m not really sure what to do.

Pardon the extroverted introspection.

I have recently realized that a good deal of my friends are college seniors. It’s not like I hadn’t realized until now that they were all a year ahead of me, but it becomes hard to ignore when all of them begin complaining about their theses, worry loudly what they’re going to do next year, and say they would choose a different concentration if they could do it all again. It’s this last one that really got me thinking about my past and my concentration. Would I be a biologist or historian if I had another four years to graduate? I truly think here that the answer is no, but that isn’t to say I wouldn’t do things differently. In fact, I have a whole list of things that I would do differently in my freshman year.

First, I would take easier classes. I came into Harvard a little confused about my academic talents, and I believe these miscalculations still affect my daily life. The first real test I took at Harvard (at least that I cared about) was the physics placement test. The idea was to help you decide if you should take Physics 15a or Physics 16; both cover the same basic material, but 16 covered it with mathematical rigor, and was notoriously much more difficult. I took the test just because I suppose, maybe to prove to myself that I was just as smart as everyone else in my class, or maybe I had this idea that I would actually use the grade to make my decision. I remember not spending too much time on it; it was an AP Physics style test, and was graded in the same way, so I would just look at the questions and answer them. I felt great about it, so when I saw Danny get up and turn it in after about half an hour, I decided, “Why not?” and turned mine in less than ten minutes later. It was only when we got our grades back that I realized my expectations were far off; Danny had received a 5, and I got a 2. Take note, my first failing grade at Harvard. Somehow I chalked the grade up to not preparing enough and being careless, but I wouldn’t make that mistake again! Next time I would be slow and steady and not be caught off guard.

So I enroll in Physics 16, and the night before the first problem set is due, I hole myself up in Lamont library and start shedding some wood. Lo and behold, I am absolutely stumped, and I go back to my room at 4am a man with much lower self esteem than before. Never again would I try to do a problem set all by myself. I started doing the homework assignments in a large group and having people explain to me the method rather than figuring it out by myself. It turns out that in physics, that is half the point, and I may have completely missed it.

So if I had taken 15a, everything would have been perfect? Well, no, but I at least would have been exposed to a gentler learning curve that may have propelled me to doing the occasional problem set with no outside assistance. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to do that, and I think I’m only just managing to go at it alone in Physics 181.

Second, I would not have taken Math 25. The professor was awful, there was too much work, and it turns out I don’t really like pure math. Occasionally I see something in physics that is relevant to the class and am glad I took it, but those moments are far outweighed by how miserable I was while doing those problem sets freshman year (although in the spring, it could have been the fact that I was taking five classes; also a mistake, but there was no way out at that point; I needed and/or am glad that I took those classes).

And I think that’s really it in terms of regrets. I think sometimes I could have worked harder and slept less, and that will always be true. Some people might say I spent too much time in the band or in the glee club, but I know that those two experiences have made my college career bearable. Glee Club gave me so much musical direction when I thought I had finished with serious music, and I met some of my best friends in that group. Band has clearly become a bigger and bigger part of my life, and sometime in the fall I will feel a huge crunch because of it, but I wouldn’t trade that for anything; the Band gave me the first close-knit group of friends I’ve had at school (excluding the blandfill) that didn’t turn out to be a bunch of douchebags, and I would gladly trade a couple points of the GPA or a top grad school for that.

This was pretty heavy, so have a video.

Ian McKellan Narrating the Ducktales theme song

Commuting

Damn it.   I wrote a draft of this post in July with the intention of finalizing it the next week:

China in nutshell: lots of people

“”"
July 18 – Commuting takes a toll on your life. We spend a significant portion of our time moving from one place to another without engaging in any sort of stimulating activity, e.g. staring at a subway door for an hour. I’ve suggested before that everyone should just learn how to play blindfold chess to make waiting more bearable (“hey stranger, e4″).

Despite how kickass that scenario would be, it will forever remain a (very geeky) dream. Yesterday , I transferred some Japanese audio lessons to my mp3 player, so we’ll see if I can be productive during an otherwise wasted part of my day.
“”"

Now that I remember having this plan, I recall that it wasn’t too successful.  I managed to get through 6 half-hour lessons over the course of a week, but it was just too troublesome to listen carefully to audio lessons on the subway.  Constantly readjusting the volume to counter the noise of the train, getting shuffled around by the throngs of people, and checking my pockets every five seconds due to fear of pickpockets were factors that weren’t very conducive to learning.  Maybe I should try doing this again during my daily commute to Vanserg.