the semester in review

What a crazy semester it’s been! I’ve had some ups, and I’ve certainly had some downs, but all in all I’ve had a really fun time. I wanted to take some time to celebrate the wins I’ve taken, learn from the opportunities that slipped by, and reflect on the semester.

academics

Man, this might be the first semester I’ve experienced such a profound level of burnout.

Objectively, the courseload I took on was similar to last semester:

But I found this schedule much more exhausting, and frankly, I didn’t really learn much outside of my classes this year; I simply did not have the energy to care about much else. Maybe a large part of this is due to living off-campus, with the commute time being quite non-trivial and all. But I think that’s not all there is to it, and maybe this is a symptom of a fundamental shift in myself as a person.

I also think it is quite unfortunate that I did not learn as much as I could have from all my classes. In particular, I’ve never stopped to reflect about analysis, although in part this is due to its breakneck pace. Unfortunately many of the definitions and proofs in Model Theory don’t really make sense to me (in the sense that I don’t understand why I should care), although reviewing Morley’s Theorem has made things start to tie together. And I really detested the algorithms course for the entire semester, though after the final my opinion of it improved drastically.

However, I have an entire month to reflect academically on the courses I took, as well as learning a bit of algebraic geometry to prepare for the spring. I hope that, academically, this semester does not turn out wasted, and I am optimistic that I can make more out of it in the coming month.

social

I think my social life really improved this semester! I had a lot of good times, and while there were a few dry weeks in the semester where nothing happened (which unfortunately dampened my mood), the rest of the semester was packed with exciting events.

In no particular order, I

Overall I had a lot of fun. I found myself in situations where I wouldn’t have been in last year (or earlier in my life), became a big party person much to my own surprise, and made a few mistakes that I am hopefully growing past.

overanalyzing different kinds of parties

At the start of the semester, I thought that frat parties and clubbing were more fun compared to the chiller houseparties that I’d go to. But upon further reflection, I realized that my preferences had flipped, and I think for good reason.

See, when you go clubbing or to a frat party, pretty much everyone there is a stranger and inhibitions are lowered. This makes it a lot easier to either walk up to people and talk to them (if you’re actually proactive) or be like me and hope that someone will come up to you if you dance hard enough to the music (which has been surprisingly effective for a shy guy like me :]). And there is a lot of fun in chatting with random strangers and letting loose on the dance floor. Because I don’t drink, I don’t wake up the next day with a hangover which is really nice — I can still plan events on Sunday morning with my friends who don’t party while the partygoers are recovering from what I can only imagine is true agony. So from one perspective, parties are a good way to let loose with no consequence.

But this is also the greatest weaknesses of frat parties/clubbing, and what in my eyes makes houseparties so much more fun. While frat parties are filled with random people, houseparties are chock full of second degree connections, the “friends of friends”. And as Po-Shen Loh says, “the best way to approach socialization is with a BFS”. There are plenty of interesting people at these parties, and unlike frat parties, it’s much easier to form and strengthen connections with people there.

Additionally, I think there are maybe three main barriers to overcome when getting to be close with someone:

  1. You literally have no idea who this person is/haven’t formally introduced yourselves. This one I think is actually a bit easier to close (provided you do it at the right timing). If you are trying to learn the names of your classmates, just try and make conversation with them before the start of class in the first week. Especially in times like orientation week, it is easy to get “name/major/where you’re from”.

    Unfortunately, I find this is usually not enough to form the start of a friendship with someone. At least personally, I think the most effective way is to actually have shared experiences together. Maybe you’re playing Smash in the dorm lounge and someone asks to join in. Or you bond over your shared interest in algebraic geometry2 or your favorite K-Pop group.3 For a lot of the people I’ve gotten close to this way, I find that I don’t even ask for their name until it comes up naturally or when one of us is about to leave.

  2. You’ll wave or say hi to them when you see them but you won’t actually have a conversation.

  3. You’ll talk to each other when you come across each other but you don’t actively make plans to hang out together.

At a frat party, you often use the conversation starters of “What’s your name? What year/major? Where are you from?” And unsurprisingly, I don’t usually end up texting the people I meet at a frat party for long. This is in stark contrast to a houseparty, where you can often break past the second barrier for people who you know exist and think are cool but haven’t really had a chance to talk to yet. And if you’ve never met a person before but they turn out to be a friend of a friend, you can at least get to the “waving at each other” stage and potentially break the second barrier at a later time (perhaps another houseparty).

Of course, there are times when you just know everyone at a house party and it’s more of catching up with friends and doing stupid stuff together rather than meeting new people. But those are good times too, even if they won’t really advance your social life as much.

By the way, given that I think houseparties are such a good form of socialization, it should come as no surprise that I attribute a lot of my improved social life to all of my friends and I getting houses this year. (After all, it would not be really possible to throw a houseparty in a dorm…)

opportunities that passed me by

I’m not the type to make the first move. This is a statement that is usually applied to romance, but for me it applies much more broadly. For example — especially in freshman year — I wouldn’t wave at people I “sort of knew but didn’t know if I knew well enough to say hi to” unless they waved at me first. And even then I’d check behind me to make sure they weren’t waving at anyone else.

My point is, I was the type of person who would wait for someone else to first express friendliness or interest. When people were looking for roommates, I pretty much let other people come to me rather than proactively looking for a roommate. This may have been a good way to feel wanted or popular, but it was not actually a good way to ensure my roommates had similar interests, compatible personalities, and similar living standards as myself.

In retrospect, this hesitation may have caused me to lose out on a lot of opportunities, both with meeting individual people but moreso with clubs/internships. Part of why I didn’t try so hard to join a club was because I feared looking stupid (if only to myself) if I tried to join one and it ended up not panning out for some reason. Even still I have this problem with just deciding to try new things, though I am taking steps to have this break help me grow past that.

In the future, I would like to be part of some clubs and organizations — I will elaborate more on this when talking about my goals over this break and the next semester.

Finally, I should probably reflect on why I was this way for so long. A big part of it is that I am inherently just a somewhat shy person, and also someone who maybe finds it hard to invest effort into new things. For instance, there have been times when I very well could’ve manuevered myself into starting a conversation with someone I ran into, but ended up only just waving at them because I didn’t feel like putting in that emotional investment and energy. While I don’t think I can ever be like a business major and just talk to everyone I ever have the opportunity to (it’s really impressive how they manage to pull it off), I think I could stand to proactively talk to more people more often.

change and the past

if I lose it all

slip and fall

will you laugh at me?

Having looked back at some of my older “social” posts, particularly my graduation post, I’ve changed a lot. Comparing myself to senior year, it almost feels as if I might as well have been a completely different person back then.

I got a sense of fashion (thank god), my music tastes changed (from almost 0% K-Pop to almost 100%), and I became a lot more extroverted. If I talked to myself in high school, even senior year but especially freshman or sophomore year, I think high school me would be shocked as to who I’ve become. But at the same time there is a good bit of continuity. I still am a massive nerd (obviously), enjoy puzzles (okay maybe that’s an extension of being a nerd), enjoy reading manga/webtoons, and probably more I’m forgetting at the moment.

It’s definitely a “two steps forward, one step back” kind of situation though. I haven’t been reading books or going on runs as often, and I’ve become more tired than I used to be. Another thing is that I get distracted more easily. When I’m out, I’m listening to music on Spotify; when I’m at home, I’ll be rotting on YouTube or Instagram or playing Minecraft. It makes sense why I’m academically fried now, because I used to lock in and study math when I had nothing else to do. So part of what I hope to accomplish this break is re-establish these good habits.

I have also fell out of touch with some old friends, even some who I was close with during freshman year. I would like to be proactive in getting back in touch with some of them at the start of the next semester! But at the same time, as we diverge from our common interests and lose shared connections, it sometimes makes sense for both of us to move on in our lives, even if we both regard each other fondly. (I watched this video recently and it really resonated with me.) Still, it’s not as if I am spending 24/7 socializing, and I basically should be. There is plenty of time to catch up with people, and I intend to be more proactive about this at the start of the next semester.

Though when I’m back in my hometown with my high school friends, even though all of us have changed (so many glowups, and so many former academic weapons turning into bums), we can still harness that same (degenerate) energy we had in the past when we’re together. After college ends, it won’t be nearly as convenient to organize reunions, so I want to make the most of the time that we have during the winter (since so many people are working internships during the summer).

goals and the future

I’m really looking forward to the future! Things I would like to get into or get better at:

  1. Okay, maybe “helped” is a bit generous of a descriptor here…↩︎

  2. Yeah at core I am still a nerd.↩︎

  3. Which presently is ATEEZ but TXT and Stray Kids are up there too.↩︎