College

My last UTCS blog post—seven life lessons from college on journaling, saying no, building habits, community, and learning to be imperfect.

On chasing curiosity down unexpected paths — using Alice's rabbit hole as a metaphor for diving deep into something you can't fully see the end of.

After too many GDC all-nighters and hunchbacked computer sessions, a realization: physical health is foundational to succeeding in everything else.

A roundup of small but meaningful life practices — wholesome hacks for staying physically and mentally well-rounded in the middle of a demanding college schedule.

Walking into an interview with a full head of thoughts — how preparation, nerves, and presence shape the outcome on both sides of the table.

A deliberate decision to step out of the entrepreneurship season — reflecting on what prompted the choice and what comes next after leaving it behind.

Following up on broad uncertainty: why finding and working within a specific niche — rather than staying wide — builds real depth and opens unexpected doors.

Entering college without knowing what CS even was — a reflection on how uncertainty about your path is normal, and how curiosity becomes the compass when there's no map.

With most required CS courses checked off, finally choosing electives freely — and why a history course opened an unexpected window into learning and campus life.

After a nonstop semester packed with meetings, projects, and entrepreneurial events — taking a breath, looking back at what mattered, and setting intentions for a more deliberate year.

A semester recap of my winding path through Austin's startup scene—joining and leaving two startups, sitting in the in-between, and finally finding Crash Cook Off at 3 Day Startup.

Coming back from Thanksgiving break with nothing done and no regrets—choosing rest over grinding, then gearing up to finish the semester like a marathon.

A letter written to myself (and anyone else running on empty) making the case for actually resting over Thanksgiving break instead of grinding through it.

Confessing my pattern of saying yes to everything—cramming courses, hackathons, orgs, recruiting—and how a summer mission trip finally taught me to aim before I fire.

A tour through every interview format—coding challenges, phone screens, video calls, whiteboarding—and learning to stop performing for companies and just aim to be better than yesterday.

Spending two hours teaching Git at a hackathon and realizing I never truly understood it myself—a case for the Feynman technique and learning through teaching.

How hackathons became the gateway into entrepreneurship—shifting from 24-hour sprints to building something for the long run.

A playful reminder to look past the free t-shirts and BBQ at CS events and actually engage with what they offer—mentors, learning, interviews, and real connections.

Processing a season of busyness and the disorientation that comes with it—and why turning toward community instead of clinging to feelings is what reorients me.

Shifting from shotgunning resumes at every booth to recruiting with intention—researching company values, culture, and mission to find a fit worth rooting into.

Coming back from a summer mission trip in Michigan with a new question—why do I do what I do?—and drafting my first lifetime vision statement.

Back from two months of missions in Ann Arbor and Detroit, reuniting with Austin, and looking ahead to junior year with a season of investment.

A final retrospective on SWE with Prof. Downing: the smooth early projects, the hard group work, the Python learning, and the takeaways.

An end-of-sophomore-year recap—cramming Texas history, surviving OS, running 100 miles, organizing hackathons, and looking ahead to junior year.

EarthHack's Pick It Up project using computer vision, coding a Gmail API script for a church grad night video, and prepping for SWE and Gov exams.

Writing a blog post about procrastination while procrastinating on a final project—digging into why I avoid work and what urgency actually looks like when it shows up.

Organizing Music Hacks, publishing a UTCS faculty profile, completing SWE Phase 3, and registering for fall classes including Korean.

Behind the scenes of organizing Music Hacks with Freetail Hackers—from API directories and t-shirt iterations to accidentally crashing the site on hackathon day.

Implementing Flask-Whooshee for SWE search, organizing Music Hacks, and learning that alone time is sometimes the right destressor.

Building the SWE Flask API, debugging a GCP deployment issue, and reflecting on overcommitment and what actually matters.

Realizing I'd spent over a year in CS chasing grades instead of learning—and the slow shift toward checking the heart behind the intention.

Algo and Gov exams, meeting Palantir, drafting a UTCS faculty article, and realizing how little code I was actually writing.

A practical walkthrough of hackathon strategy—brainstorming under pressure, building a diverse team, and making sure the presentation does justice to a sleepless night of work.

Catching up after Spring Break, shipping the SWE website, and navigating a paranoid game of Assassins with Freetail Hackers.

Spring Break camping in Texas, winning the SXSW hackathon with Credit Writer, and a staycation with church friends.

Winning Mobile Track at HackUTD with SensorStrike, planning the SWE website project team, and previewing a second short story.

From hating hackathons to falling in love with them—and joining Freetail Hackers to organize one myself.

SWE Test 1 prep, joining FreeTail Hackers Tech Team, cooking Gordon Ramsay sliders, and studying Algo as a dynamic programming cache.

The original version of my CS event swag rant—watching students stampede a recruiter's table and reflecting on the privilege we take for granted as CS majors.

Algo exam regrets over a wasted 20 minutes on a counterexample, finishing a short story without a conclusion, and wondering if there's room for everything.

A mid-college crisis at the career fair—choosing a mission trip over an internship, discovering a love for teaching through proctoring, and questioning whether the industry is really where I belong.

Algo problem-sets, Netflix finished early, SWE group coordination for Spring Break, and the decision to do missions instead of internships this summer.

Church retreat debt, tedious Algo proofs, interviewing a UTCS professor on OS research, and changing a fiction story from zombies to tribal artists.

Proctoring OOP and getting frustrated by lazy questions—then realizing the frustration is really with my past self, and making the case for owning what you don't know.

Liquids week of the One-Desire fast, IM basketball while running on empty, and learning to treat spec changes like real industry pressure.

A pitch for CS majors to take non-CS classes—social dance, fiction writing, interpersonal communication—and how stepping outside the major builds you as a person.

Week one of a One-Desire meat fast, finishing Collatz after 15 hours of wrong optimization, and writing four simultaneous blogs at once.

Coming back from winter break after a brutal semester and wrestling with the comparison trap—choosing to step into a new season instead of staying bound by old insecurities.

Back from Taiwan with a reset sleep schedule, starting Algorithms and Software Engineering, and proctoring OOP for the first time.

Five days of JavaScript30, designing a social dance app with microservices, and a spiritual fast from YouTube and social media.

Studying OS with Feynman's method, unboxing a Black Friday Echo Dot, and planning side projects for winter break.

Five finals-week survival tips—planned breaks, hot chocolate, honest venting, study groups, and letting it go once the exam is done.

The hardest week of semester: an ER visit from stress and anxiety, the toughest OOP exam yet, and finishing everything just barely.

Learning to ask for help after spending three days on a problem a coworker fixed in five minutes—and finding the balance between cheap help and expensive help.

Thanksgiving break: real sleep, teahouse visits, a new bike, and the OS project hovering in the background the whole time.

Spoiler: there isn't one. A walkthrough of languages across classes, hackathons, and jobs to show that the right language depends on what problem you're trying to solve.

Wrapping up OS Project 3 and the OOP Life project, narrowly missing a bike at a silent auction, and mixed feelings about the semester ending.

A case for code documentation born from a frustrating hackathon with an undocumented game engine—addressing every excuse I used to have for skipping it.

Winning People's Choice and Best Technical at Indigitous #Hack with a music sentiment analysis app, then getting nominated to compete globally.

A lighthearted case for Python over Java after my first full Python project at the Indigitous #Hack hackathon—covering dynamic typing, the interactive interpreter, and easy library management.

Studying for the OS exam on a whiteboard, setting up VirtualBox out of code withdrawal, and the sophomore slump making itself known.

HackTX brainstorming, the Darwin project's big lesson: 60% design makes everything else easier, and the 50th anniversary UTCS celebration.

My very first UTCS blog post—a rundown of why hackathons are worth the sleep deprivation, from free food and swag to learning, building, and making friends at 3 AM.

Finishing OOP's Allocator project ahead of schedule, dereferencing a pointer I'd already seen and ignored, and Downing's best analogies yet.

Landing a UTCS blogger job, a 3-day OS bug hiding in a single line of C type declaration, and a rough week shadowed by a friend's passing.

Balancing the OOP exam on Canvas, an OS Stack assignment full of memcpy surprises, and a constant tug-of-war between requirements and what matters more.

TAMUHack: hardware-hacking our way from an Intel Smart Glove to a virtual air drum set that won People's Choice and Best Technical awards.

A 4AM coding session in the lab and HackGT at Georgia Tech — building Hungry Cats over 36 sleepless hours with an undocumented Android game engine.

Finding the tight-knit CS lab community, finishing the first OS shell project, and starting a Netflix cache project with a partner.

Debugging Collatz with Docker, Travis CI, and stray merge conflicts — plus dancing scheduling algorithms in front of a 439 lecture hall.

Learning MATLAB and LaTeX, juggling C++ and OS projects, and discovering a typing-based note-taking method that actually works.

First week of sophomore year at UT Austin: installing Docker, writing C linked lists, revamping a resume, and teaching social dance.