It’s been a semester on roller coaster. Dealing with an overload schedule, It seems that I can finish the semester strong despite a relatively poor middle sector performance. The only issue is that I still cannot give up my dumb idealism to become a Renaissance man - which is quite hard to achieve if you don’t come from an elite background and have outstanding intelligence and determination. I’m still hesitating on where I would end up next semester. And I’m making a plan for my summer - math, CS, and literature review is my initial goal.

So far, linear algebra is the only field I have “deep” knowledge about in terms of mathematics. The honors section of Abstract Linear Algebra taught by Prof. Eugene Lerman gave me some shock when I got loads of points deducted in midterms for some proof formatting issues. And it got me stressed every Tuesday when I need to stay up to fully understand the material to finish the homework, but finally with some anonymous Piazza post, I got an A due a bit of a curve. I got some exposure of abstract algebra, analysis, and topology in the Fundamental Mathematics taught by Prof. Alexander Yong, a humorous and easy-going professor who is very good at making ideas accessible to everyone. I started to enjoy mathematics even if it would take me a whole day to solve three analysis problems.

Another huge thing is that - I’m bidding my farewell to chemistry (or chemical engineering). I AM SO SAD that I gave it up for Mathematics and Computer Science. I somewhat felt like it was because I was not brave enough to commit to it. This sometimes looks like choosing an easy way out since Math and CS are all the rage now. I can still recall the days during high school when we were preparing of the Chemistry Olympiad. My classmates and I gathered in the hotel room for a heated chem discussion during the chem summer camp while trying to read English academic textbooks for the first time. The book, The Art of Writing Reasonable Organic Reaction Mechanisms, called by “Art” by us, is actually a textbook for a graduate level physical organic chemistry class, as I later found at UIUC bookstore. Well I definitely don’t understand the textbook thoroughly, but I’m still weirdly proud of myself. But the competition was crazily fierce and there were tons of students who not only had read the book but even other advanced books. One of them called “March”, the other classic being Name Reactions. (Well I actually read that book. It was super useful in solving test problems). In the end I did not get through the tryout for the Provincial team, which, interestingly, started a series of butterfly effect that led me here.

I always had a love-hate relationship with chemistry. It remains fascinating to me while I always struggle with lab sessions. Maybe it was the lack of experience, maybe it was my impatience. A still mysterious world of organic chemistry makes the reaction mechanisms look somewhat like magic - annoyingly interesting but, well, I like something that can be reasoned out somewhat rigorously rather than tested in a lab. Anyway, I think I may still come back to chemistry one day - maybe using some computational scientific methods.

There were more strange moments that made me both sad and motivated at the same time, and sometimes, depressed. But it has been a pretty semester. Some people I met during these times are going to remain in my heart. Thank all the people who loved me and supported me in the first two decades of my life. I may not be a “good example” in high school nor did I transfer into a top 20 private school or CS@CMU, but I would always love exploring and experiencing new stuff. Although I do miss my family and friends back home. This year has been wild, and I am not going back home for summer.

Keep Calm and Carry On.

On a calm night after a weekend’s storm, May 18.

Huge Love and Thanks to My Quarantine Squad Buddies

(made for CS 225 Date Structrues machine problems with quarantine pics)

Huge Love and Thanks to My Quarantine Squad Buddies, Daniel Zhang and Kary Wang