College, a rite of passage for a majority of young people. Whether this be community college, university, or vocational school, it's an experience many of us share.

However, while we all may share it, everyone's college experience is different. Some people find college to be miserable or regretful. Some people find college to be among the best time of their life. Others find it unremarkable. The truth is likely a mix of the three, especially for me.

How would I label mine? Well, I don't feel like I should. Any attempt to put a label on my college experience will be reductive in some way. Saying it was a good time of my life neglects my lows. Saying it was a regretful time of my life neglects my accomplishments. Saying it was just a time of my life neglects the underlying experiences.

No group of labels can possibly capture everything. Thus, I feel the best way to share it is to simply tell the story. While a blog certainly will fail to capture everything, I feel as if it's one of the best ways to do so. After all,

Truth... is much too complicated to allow anything but approximations¹

1: John von Neumann

Preparing for College

While I was in high school, I knew I wanted to attend a prestigious university, ideally in California. My dream was simple: study computer science, and use the prestige of the university to land a software engineering (SWE) role. Specifically, I wanted to work at Google's Santa Monica facility on Venice Beach, since I had toured it in 2019 and loved the culture and location. I applied to the following schools², all for computer science. My acceptances are emphasized

1. Yale University
2. CalTech
3. UC San Diego
4. UC Irvine
5. UC Los Angeles
6. UC Santa Barbara (College of Creative Studies)
7. Cal Poly Pomona
8. Cal Poly San Luis Obispo

I applied to UCSB as a double major in math and computer science at the College of Creative Studies, on advice from my father. Ultimately, I was rejected from CCS, and also from computer science, instead being admitted as a mathematics major to the College of Letters & Science.

In the end, I was debating between the following three options

1. UCSD: Computer Science
2. UCI: Computer Science
3. UCSB: Mathematics

Anyone in my position could tell you that UCSD and UCI are no-brainers for my dreams. After all, I wanted to study computer science. But my parents really admired CCS, and despite my rejection from it, encouraged me to attend UCSB anyways in hopes of eventually transferring.

Ultimately, I listened to them and attended UCSB. It wouldn't be until much later that I realized that my rejection from computer science, and consequently acceptance into mathematics, was divine intervention.

With my acceptance, I bid Valencia High School my last farewell, excited to continue my journey in a new place.

2: This list is incomplete, as I do not remember all my acceptances, let alone the schools I applied to.

Freshman Year

By far the most adventurous time of my college experience. But I wouldn't say it was the most fun nor enjoyable, as that's reserved for my later years.

My New Living Situation

I arrived onto campus for the first time at around midday, where my parents and I unpacked my belongings and tidied my dorm at Santa Rosa Hall. We spent a few hours together in Santa Barbara eating dinner, until I was finally dropped off at my dorm.

After bidding my parents farewell, the first thing I did was bend my lanyard's ring. I unlocked my door, forgetting to remove the key from the lock, and walked forward, causing my lanyard to snag on the ring and bend it slightly. To say I was utterly disappointed with myself would be an understatement, as this is the very first thing I've accomplished upon being given independence. Fortunately, my roommate Jackson was kind enough to lend me some pliers, and I was able to fix it pretty easily.

Jackson and I got along very well. Our living habits weren't the most compatible, but we were able to work through it together very easily. He was never a major bother for me, and I imagine that I was never a major bother for him. While we didn't spend time together outside our dorm, we still talked pretty often and enjoyed each other's company. Although our other roommate, whom I will not name, lacked this harmony.

For the most part, my unnamed roommate was a recluse, keeping to himself most the time. He was never a major bother socially. His cleanliness was a major bother though. I remember him being in his bed for about 20 hours a day, having never washed his bedsheets a single time during the entire school year. Moreover, he showered incredibly inconsistently. To say our room smelled would be a gross understatement. Jackson and I protested to our roommate several times, all to no avail. Eventually, Jackson got so fed up with this that he frequently bought Febreze Air Fresheners simply to make the room bearable to stay in. Retrospectively, I appreciated Jackson standing up for the things that I was too cowardly to broach.

Ironically, it was my unnamed roommate's dirtiness that inspired me to remain clean. I made it a crucial point to never allow myself to become as unbearable of a person as he was. I never saw myself as a filthy person, but this experience most certainly strayed me from a path of ever becoming one.

Aside from my roommate situation, the dorms were okay. The central location was a major bonus, as well as the proximity of all my friends. Being able to run into people and make plans on a whim is an unforgettable experience.

However, there were two parts of the dorms I could never get over.

1. Communal kitchen
2. Communal bathrooms

Both were disgusting. I vowed to get out of the dorms as soon as I could, since I largely saw the dorms as a hub of filth.

My New Social Life

My first goal was to make friends, as all my friends from high school went to different universities. So I signed up for a lot of clubs: Math Club, Pacific Math Alliance, Data Science UCSB, Video Game Development Club, Gaucho Gaming, you name it. If there was ever an event open to all, there was a solid chance I was present.

I ended up making friends at a Ki Aikido Martial Arts class hosted by the recreation center.

Why did I sign up for Ki Aikido, of all things? I honestly couldn't tell you. I think the underlying philosophy of harmony, calmness, and redirecting aggressive energy deeply resonated with me. Embarrassingly, I showed up 40 minutes late to the first lesson. Not because I was legitimately late, but because I couldn't find the room it was being hosted in.

Nevertheless, I made three great friends in Aikido: Antonia, Jessica, and Josephine. They became my primary friend group, in which we dubbed ourselves the "Saturday Crew" since we always hung out on Saturday.

Coincidentally, Josephine and I were neighbors, as we lived in adjacent halls to one another. So we hung out very often, getting dinner together very frequently, typically on a whim. She was easily one of my greatest friends that year, and someone I felt comfortable talking to about anything.

Academic Ambitions

Ending the social diversion here, I would like to return to the goals my high school self set.

1. Transfer into CCS Computing
2. Gain enough experience to work as a SWE at a big tech company, ideally Google

To make myself "competitive", I figured I should do a double major in mathematics and computer science. So I contacted the CCS Math and Computing faculty about a transfer.

They responded essentially saying "sorry, our freshman class is too big, so we cannot accept any more students". Naturally, I was devastated, as my goals had essentially disappeared right in front of my eyes.

The most brutal part of all this? The Santa Rosa dormitory is positioned right next to the College of Creative Studies building. Every day, I had to walk by that building, knowing I failed to not only get in initially, but also was unable to transfer into it. To say my self-esteemed worsened would be a terrible minimization of how I felt.

I was just about ready to accept my fate. But one day, I went to an event hosted by Data Science UCSB. It was essentially a party on the oceanside balconies. At this event, I ran into a CCS Math senior. We talked for a while about all sorts of things, until I eventually mentioned everything I had written here. How I tried to apply to CCS, was rejected, tried to transfer, and rejected again.

His response was along the lines of

Well, try again. I was in a similar position as you, having transferred in my freshman year. What worked for me is I took a few CCS courses, and they liked me enough to let me in. You should do the same. Reach out to the other advisor³ Karel. Maybe you can take some of his courses.

And you know, he was right. It's easy to say no to an email, but hard to say no to a face. Especially when that face is tied to demonstrated experience. I emailed Karel requesting exactly this: I want to transfer into CCS Math, and I would like to take a few courses to "prove my worth".

He responded to my email positively, and after some back-and-forth, he essentially said⁴

1. He will allow me to take one course in winter quarter.
2. If I do well, he will allow me to take two additional courses in spring quarter.
3. It is my responsibility to learn the prerequisites for these courses.

I agreed, and spent all winter break catching myself up to speed. I asked one of my professors for material suggestions, in which he granted me access to an old course containing pre-recorded lectures. As a result, I put my computing ambitions on pause and focused solely on math.

This was all very risky, as nothing was guaranteed, but I knew this was a step in the right direction. After all, I took the risk of coming to UCSB over comfortable options at UCSD and UCI, so it would be quite dumb to squander it.

Prior to taking these courses, I was used to being at the top of the class, with everything coming very easily to me. This was especially true for the first few courses I took at UCSB. So being placed into a room full of significant prowess, far exceeding my own, where we're all learning material that took hours to digest, was incredibly humbling.

The best part though? My classmates never judged me, nor saw me as inferior. I was treated as one of their own, as if I'd been a CCS Math student all along. As a result, my perspective on learning and the world changed substantially. The value of prestige and being "the best" now meant nothing, and I instead focused on learning. Because well, at a certain point, "the best" doesn't make any sense.

Ultimately, as much as I struggled, I did well in all of these courses, and Karel respected me greatly⁵. In the midst of spring quarter, my transfer application into CCS Math was approved, and I was finally in CCS. Rather than walking by the CCS building every day with feelings of doubt and shame, I can walk by it with a newfound sense of pride and accomplishment.

3: As of writing, CCS has two math advisors. He told me to speak with the advisor I hadn't interacted with yet.

4: For those curious, Karel allowed me to take a mock math research class in winter, then Game Theory and Real Analysis in spring. The "prerequisites" were discrete mathematics.

5: At the end of my sophomore year, he told me (paraphrasing): "Wow, you're moving onto bigger classes and won't take any of mine anymore. I'll miss you and the energy you brought, I really liked it". Was very difficult for me to not cry right there and then.

A Summer of Doubt

Having successfully transferred into CCS Math, my next goal was to double major in CCS Computing. However, my experiences during this summer sowed a seed of doubt that culminated with dropping this ambition altogether.

Like any freshman trying to break into tech, I was trying to find an internship. I learned the hard way that many companies don't like hiring freshmen, so it's incredibly competitive, and unlikely as someone who wasn't in a tech major. However, through Data Science UCSB, I got involved with an informal project that sufficed my desires.

The project was essentially the upgrading, development, and maintenance of a Discord bot serving the UCSB general server. The purpose of the project was to equip club members with skills needed for pivoting to SWE roles. It was very small in scope, but despite this, there was an interviewing process⁶, so it felt fairly formal.

To be completely honest, I was surprised that I was chosen for the role. Perhaps I perfectly matched the background of a non-CS major trying to pivot into CS. Nevertheless, that summer I devoted about 4–6 hours a week working on it, while also working as a tutor on the side.

While I didn't dislike the project, I didn't find it that interesting either. As I was working, I realized that this is the type of work I was trying to pivot into. Don't get me wrong, I don't think SWE is inferior work or lacks interesting aspects in its own right, I just simply did not find it that fulfilling to do. Frankly, doing this kind of work for the rest of my life would leave me miserable.

I didn't articulate that last point until a bit later into my college experience, but the seeds of doubt were sowed. Ironically, the project leader for this Discord bot intended to offer us an experience that would help us break into computer science. However, he did the exact opposite for me, as it was this experience that broke me out of it.

6: The reason why was because the leader of the project wanted to keep it small in scope, at 3 new people, amidst 10–15 members expressing interest.

Sophomore Year

Sophomore year was by far the most depressing time of my life. It's unsurprising that I don't have many pictures from this time period as a result.

For a while, I also treated it as the least remarkable. But that's not really a fair thing to say. After all, it was precisely during sophomore year that I not only managed to develop foundations, academically and socially, that would carry me very far, but also point myself in the right direction.

My Not-So-New Living Situation

I hadn't managed to find an apartment for my sophomore year, so I was still in the dorms. Frustratingly, my room assignment was not only in the same building, it changed only by 1 number. I went from Room 1141 to Room 2141. A part of me was disappointed, since my living situation was more or less the same, offering no new experiences in an otherwise adventurous time of my life.

However, my roommates this time around were amazing. We all got along very well and enjoyed each other's company. The quality of the room was certainly much better, and I deeply appreciate them for it. While we didn't hang out very often, we still interact with each other to this day.

Not much more is to be said, as my living situation was otherwise identical. I still yearned for the days I would have my own kitchen and bathroom.

My Newer Social Life

As they say, all good things must come to an end. The Saturday Crew, my primary freshman year friend group, was falling a part

1. Jessica transferred to a different school.
2. Antonia, while keeping in touch with us, branched off into other things.

In spite of those two, Josephine and I stayed in touch for much of our freshman year, even the following summer. At some points we would even talk with each other daily. But alas, we drifted a part during fall quarter of sophomore year. She was in an entirely different major than I, so our classes began to diverge. At some point, I probably began to annoy and outright frustrate her, as I certainly wasn't the most mature nor respectful person towards her. Eventually, at the end of the quarter, we parted our separate ways from each other. Aside from one brief interaction a few months later, we have not spoken since.

Naturally, the collapsing of my friend group, as well as parting ways with one of my closest friends, left me very depressed. One of my biggest failures during freshman year was acquiring many friends. Outside the Saturday Crew, I didn't really interact with people that intimately. So I made it an especially important point to develop a stronger foundation of friends.

One friend, Kavi, helped me greatly during my period of depression. I don't quite remember exactly how we met and started interacting, though I remember it was in the midst of my depression. I was a pretty terrible friend to her, as I frequently bailed on her or made little effort to interact with her. And yet, she still talked with me. We haven't spoken with each other in a long time, but I sincerely hope she's doing well.

What especially helped, however, was forming a new friend group with my future roommates. Oddly enough, I befriended two cliques of them separately, both at the Tabletop Gaming Club. Eventually, they realized that they all knew who I was, and invited me to the broader friend group.

And finally, now being an official CCS major, I began hanging out with my peers. I signed up for a Directed Reading Program through the Math department, and bonded with my friend Pariya. Our project wasn't anything major, focusing on old-school neural networks (namely, Hopfield Models). It was a good experience to not only expose myself to math, but also work with other people. Although, I don't think Pariya liked the project much, if at all.

Renewed Academic Ambitions

Digesting my summer Discord project, as well as subsequent interactions with computer science in general, led me to conclude that I would be miserable as a CS major. My DRP project with Pariya was especially insightful as I realized that technology was not locked behind computer science, and in fact was far more interesting under a lens of mathematics.

Nevertheless, I was dejected as I went through realizing how wrong and off-the-mark my high school ambitions were. The goals I had been holding since sophomore year of high school are now unattainable, not because I physically couldn't accomplish them, but because I would be miserable doing so. I wasn't feeling chagrin, but rather a loss of purpose. After all, my ultimate college goal was to eventually become a SWE, so now what do I work towards?

I wouldn't have an answer for this question until junior year. Until then, my strategy was simple: focus on getting the core requirements of my major out of the way, and explore outside the classroom. This led to my greater involvement with Data Science UCSB, and my friend Sam (not my roommate), an officer of the club.

While I was more involved than freshman year, I still wasn't very active in Data Science UCSB as a club member, attending some social events or small workshops and not much more. At the end of the year though, they were recruiting for officer positions. Originally, I wasn't planning to apply, as I felt like I wasn't qualified nor belonged. But Sam encouraged me to apply to the "Beginner Pipeline Director". The gist of the role is I would teach Python, Python packages, and other data science fundamentals to club members. While I had little exposure to data science at this point, the role was simple enough that I qualified for it.

After applying, I was selected for an interview. The interview went really well⁷, although I later learned that the then-President left a note saying "friendly and personable, but a bit boring". Ouch. Nevertheless, they accepted me, and I was happy as I felt like I was heading down the right direction. Upon arrival to Data Science UCSB, the technical team was as follows

• Beginner Pipeline: Daniel (me)
• Intermediate Pipeline: Mitali
• Project Pipeline: Tanay, Mehir

We all got along very well, with Tanay, Mitali, and I referring to ourselves as the dream team, and Mehir serving as our leader. How little did I know that this decision was one of the most transformative decisions I've ever made, and is where I attribute all of my following success.

7: The interview, led by Mehir, had a surprise technical question. "Given a string of words separated by whitespace, produce a list of the unique words." My solution was to split the string into a list, convert it to a hash table, then back into a list. The intended solution involved regex, but they accepted mine anyways. I later learned that, out of all the people they interviewed (15–20), including for more advanced roles, only 3 people figured it out, which were myself, Tanay, and Mitali.

A Summer of Development

At the very first meeting with my technical colleagues at Data Science UCSB, we agreed on one thing: we need to abolish the pipelines. Essentially, the pipelines were club-curated courses into a particular subject, with weekly lectures and recommended "take-home" assignments. They received little attendance, were poor in structure, and too demanding on our club members. We spent the entire meeting discussing alternatives.

Ultimately, we came up with the following plan.

1. All technical officers are now "Directors of Technical Development".
2. The pipeline meetings are to be replaced with workshops, essentially à la carte lessons in data science.
3. Project groups through the club are required to attend weekly "check-ins" wherein we assess progress every week. Three absences disqualifies a project group.
4. Technical officers are responsible for mentoring projects and hosting workshops.

Which frightened me, since I was originally brought onto the club to teach Python, and am suddenly held to the standard of guiding advanced data science projects. Keep in mind that at this point, I had almost exclusively taken theoretical math courses, such as real analysis, complex analysis, numerical analysis, and linear algebra. So my knowledge of data science was largely nonexistent. However, I knew it would be wrong of me to object to the plan, since this design was best for the club as a whole. As a result, I spent that entire summer catching myself up to speed.

What did this look like? Developing workshop material⁸. We partitioned workshop topics among ourselves and spent most of the summer building them from scratch.

Surprisingly, my math background was incredibly handy, as it became exceptionally useful for understanding everything. At first, I paid little attention to this detail, dismissing it as coincidence. But I would eventually come to realize, and appreciate, just how far a math background can take you.

8: I wouldn't realize this until post-graduation, but I essentially employed Feynman's technique for all my learning.

Junior Year

My most pivotal year that holds the crowned jewels of my accomplishments. Junior year was truly a test of commitment, patience, time management, and adaptability. By and large, it was the year in which I transformed the most.

A New Sense of Purpose

Upon junior year's beginning, I was rather nervous. My background in data science was fairly minimal, and we were beginning to execute our plans for the DS club. Moreover, I was taking several graduate courses across the math and PSTAT (Probability & Statistics) departments. Furthermore, I was working as a tutor for the university. I intended to maintain all these commitments, so I fully expected everything to be difficult.

To make matters worse, almost as soon as the quarter started, our technical leader Mehir resigned from the club to pursue other interests. This left Tanay, Mitali, and I in an awkward situation, as we are now carrying out a plan without a clear leader, and with one less contributor.

Luckily, all 3 of us got along very well, and quickly identified our niches. We understood all our strengths and shortcomings, and redirected curious club members to the appropriate officer.

Moreover, hosting workshops and mentoring projects wasn't nearly as bad as I thought. My course knowledge, summer experience, and especially math background proved incredibly useful. The nice thing about teaching is you understand the material far better and identify your misconceptions.

Something I hadn't realized until much later was how much overlap, and consequentially personal development, my data science experience had with my tutoring experience. It essentially became a positive feedback loop: the tutoring experience improved my explanations, which improved my ability to mentor, which improved my ability to host group sessions, which improved my public speaking abilities, etc.

However, while Data Science UCSB did a good job at exposing myself to new ideas, it wouldn't be until I took PSTAT 215A, Bayesian Statistics with Dr. Alexander Franks, that I would find my new purpose. The class was amazing, both in terms of the way it was taught and the material itself. It was at that moment I finally understood where exactly my interests lie.

An Ascending Social Life

Having my own apartment immensely improved my well-being. Aside from finally having my own kitchen and bathroom, I was in an environment constantly surrounded by friends. My prior roommates Jackson, Bryar, and Sam were all great, don't get me wrong, but I never bonded with them as friends like I did with my roommates.

It was especially nice to be able to cook meals and share it with everyone. I grew quite fond of cooking while I was in the apartment, as it served as a pleasant way to pass time while I had nothing else to do.

Outside my roommates, I bonded incredibly well with the board members of Data Science UCSB. Seeing everyone regularly was very nice, especially Tanay and Mitali. We had to work closely together since much of our work was entirely experimental, constantly needing reassessment and modifications.

And lastly, I made great friends at tabletop gaming club, beyond my roommates. We hung out fairly often, typically around twice a week.

My social network rapidly expanded. Going from very few friends in freshman and early sophomore year to several different friend groups brought me a lot of happiness. I enjoyed talking with everyone, and it was a great way to keep myself occupied.

A Summer of Research

One of the graduation requirements for CCS was to engage in some form of research. Originally, I was getting involved with a few of an unnamed professor's projects. However, I thought long and hard about it, and ultimately dropped those commitments once I realized I wouldn't enjoy those projects.

Instead, I worked on a project with Franks. Going into detail will require a blog post in and of itself, but the gist of the project is we wanted to propose alternative ways to quantify the skill of NBA basketball players. Our idea was to use the tools of causal inference, and try to determine the "causal effect" of each player on point differentials.

While we weren't able to achieve our goal⁹, I learned immensely from this project. Although, I held myself to a ridiculously high standard, always fearing I was disappointing Franks. I learned the hard way just how much disconnect there is between graduate courses and real-world projects at the same level. As much as I may have panicked and potentially stressed him out, I think we bonded well during it.

9: The bottleneck of the project was evaluation. We couldn't figure out a good way to benchmark our metrics with the industry standard's metrics, since they were fundamentally very different for our target audience. For ad hoc evaluations, we used RMSE, in which the null model that predicts 0 skill for everyone performed the best.

Senior Year

My most satisfying year, defined mainly by balancing commitments and stress, followed by relaxation.

The Perils of Commitment

The first quarter of senior year was the most stressful quarter of my entire college, rivaled only by my first quarter of junior year.

Why? Four reasons

1. I took on the role of "Internal Vice President" for Data Science UCSB, which led the technical wing. It was much more demanding than I had anticipated.
   • I should note that, while a new executive role, no autonomy was lost among any of the technical officers.
   • We also were re-evaluating many of our ideas in the year prior, though fortunately we had a larger team which made it more manageable.
2. I decided to enroll into PSTAT 223A, despite not taking its prerequisites PSTAT 213BC.
   • In fact, I was enrolled in 3 graduate courses.
3. I was applying to grad school.
4. I continued to work as a CLAS tutor.

Expanding our ideas in Data Science UCSB was challenging. We agreed that, while the previous year's systems were a step in the right direction, it was far from perfect. Our primary point of contention was the role of workshops, as we felt it resembled lectures too much while resembling projects too little. We made it a point to reassess them.

As difficult as contributing to the club may have been, it pales in comparison to my courses. PSTAT 223A, stochastic calculus, was by far the most difficult class I have ever taken. However, it was also one of the most interesting, rivaled only by PSTAT 215A with Franks. The professor, Dr. Jean-Pierre Fouque, whom I will refer to as JP, was easily one of my best professors. Aside from explaining the subject very well, JP structured the class very interestingly. It opened my eyes to mathematical modeling. JP is a major name in mathematical finance, a field deeply rooted with the material, so he was easily one of the best professors to teach it.

To pile onto my stress, grad school applications hit me hard. While I spent some of the summer coming up with decent generic application material, the tricky part was finding schools and, more importantly, identifying professors who matched my interests. At the time (and as of writing), my interests were incredibly broad, and having only 1 year of experience up until this point, also fairly vague. I did not want to add another stressor of the GRE, so I was forced to filter out many programs that interested me.

Retrospectively, while my generic application was solid, my effort at tailoring the applications towards the individual schools left much room for improvement. Moreover, I should have reached out to professors during the summer about potential interests. But pondering over these concerns is fruitless, since UC Irvine was my top choice to begin with, the school I ultimately ended up at.

The Homestretch

After my fall quarter ended, things calmed down substantially. And for those last six months of undergrad, I felt great solace. All my stressors and worries had passed, and now I was just focusing on the things that interested me, academically and socially, until I graduated. Of course, I was worried about my future, and if I would even get into grad school. But I was happy knowing that all that's left is to make the most out of college.

My social life was at an all-time high, as my roommates and I moved to a newer (and more spacious) apartment. The living room was especially nice, as it made hanging out very easy. Every Wednesday night I invited my friends to play games together. Why Wednesday? It was the only time that worked for us.

Those six months felt like a bliss. In many ways, things were going incredibly well¹⁰. All my worries of falling behind disappeared entirely. The university even wrote an article about me. Most of my courses were exclusively ones I wanted to take, except for introductory physics (PHYS 7A). My involvement, both in extracurriculars and social activities, was prolific. At last, everything I did was for myself, and myself only.

10: Karel, my CCS math advisor, reached out to me in the beginning of winter quarter. He asked if I could be a grader for his optimization class, Math 132A. I was happy to be invited, and accepted the offer. Upon the start of spring quarter, the Math Department reached out to me and asked if I would be willing to grade for Math 132B. The offer left me feeling very excited knowing I did a good job in their eyes.

All Good Things Must Come to an End

But alas, six months is not a very long time, and it ended just as quickly as it started. On June 8th, 2025, I finally graduated¹¹ from UCSB, with a major in mathematics and a minor in statistical sciences.

Frustratingly, we graduated on the weekend in between Week 10 and finals week, so we were still required to do finals. While I wasn't worried about any of them, to say I was irked would be a grand understatement.

My last time on campus¹² was Friday, June 13th, 2025. One of my courses didn't have a final exam, instead a final homework assignment the professor requested to be turned in on paper. I entered his office, chatted with him briefly, and bid him farewell and a good summer. This was my last moment as an undergrad, and I felt bittersweet. I decided to reward myself by going to the nearby snack shop, The Arbor.

And just as my luck would have it, I got gum stuck to my pants as soon as I sat down. And you know, it reminded me of how I began college, by bending my lanyard's ring. A mix of both obliviousness and misfortune. I guess some things never change, do they?

Alas, I bid my final farewell to UCSB, excited to begin a new journey at UCI.

11: Although my diploma says June 13th, 2025. I honestly have no clue why, probably administrative consistency across all issued diplomas.

12: Except a graduation ceremony I attended on June 14th, though I didn't enter campus proper, just the outskirts along the lagoon.

Closing Remarks

To all that have read this far, I appreciate it. Keep in mind that there are many experiences and events I was unable to mention. This is merely an approximation, not a proper retelling, of my college experience. Doing so would require me to verbally tell the story.

For anyone reading this blog for advice, there are a few key takeaways I want to highlight.

1. There is no "proper" college experience. If you ask anyone else to retell theirs, it will be dramatically different from mine. Worry not about doing what other people consider right, but what you consider worthy.
   • The worst thing you can do is use this blog as a template for your own experiences. Don't do that. You will be missing out on the whole point of independence.
2. There are several themes throughout this blog, namely perseverance, determination, and most notably, luck. It's easy to conclude that, while I was a hard worker, my success is a product of luck in my early formative years. This is a good point, but also one that neglects one crucial fact: I am only telling the highlights, both highs and lows, of my story.
   • For the most part, the reason why I was lucky was simply because I forced myself to do several things and kept the ones that stuck. I have not written about, nor mentioned, many of those things. Trying a select few things and waiting for something to happen only works for a small group of fortunate people.
   • As I like to tell many of my friends¹³, "Never compare your average life to other people's highlights." You don't know my average life, just my peaks and valleys.
3. Chase your interests, not dollar signs. Had I stuck with my pursuit of computer science¹⁴, an interest formed purely on the basis of wanting a well-paying job, I would have been miserable. My pursuit of mathematics, something I truly enjoyed, took me even further.
   • Some people don't have this luxury. Sometimes, you're forced to do something for money, or forced to chase after things you don't enjoy.
   • That's legitimate, but I must question: how is a young college student at this point in their life? It's far too easy to look at other people's successes or the state of the world and conclude it's over for you, without actually assessing your available options, accomplishments, or time.
     • Let this blog be a testament to the fact that I figured out my interests and made all my accomplishments in junior year, after two years of almost nothing, and went further than many people in my graduating class.
   • Besides, many vocational skills are extracurricular and achievable beyond the classroom. Studying something you enjoy will do volumes for your well-being and character development.

13: I didn't come up with the original quote. I heard a bastardized version of it on some "never give up" slop and reworked it into something more meaningful. I also recognize how arrogant it is to quote myself, though the material greatly summarizes what I'm trying to say.

14: Do not get the impression that I'm denouncing computer science, or any field adjacent to a job, as "pursuits of dollar signs". I am simply acknowledging that such fields were not good for me. This may not be the case for you, or most CS majors for that matter.

Acknowledgements

I obtained permission from my friends to use their images in this blog, and I appreciate them for it.