Reflecting on Mistakes
During high school, I was overconfident. I thought I was the shit. I thought I was gonna get into Princeton without a hitch, just because my grades would carry me. Did they? Hell no. I started to falter in 11th grade. I graduated from high school cum laude, nowhere near where the Princeton students would be.
When I was sitting there at my high school graduation in EagleBank Arena, I realized I had screwed up and wasted my potential. My mom once said to me that they (my parents) pushed me so I didn't waste it, and, right now, I feel like I did.
I wanted my big thing to be esports. I wanted to put top 500 Valorant player with $10,000 in earnings on my college applications. I had a passion for it; I wanted to go pro at some point and compete on an international stage. It was around the summer after 11th grade that I realized that the dream was futile. I also realized that I probably should've spent all of that time doing something productive with my life. Studying, LeetCode, extracurriculars. My ECs fell far behind those who did actual work and competitions like IPhO, IMO, robotics, and other stuff where there are tangible results.
In the end, it was my hubris that blinded me from seeing the bigger picture. An approach to life that dreamed about the wrong things, one that was too lax in chasing results. I know I'm smart. I know I still have it in me to accomplish big things: to retire my parents, to put my siblings through college, to give back to the community that has supported me for 18 years thus far.
Locking in
And thus begins my search for redemption. I don't owe it to anyone but myself. I want to make myself proud. Currently, I plan to apply to transfer to one of these four schools:
- Columbia
- Princeton
- Cornell
- Stanford
Now this isn't to say Virginia Tech is a bad school. I think it is a very good school (albeit with a mediocre math department). However, a prestigious undergrad helps a ton when trying to network with people.
However, this is not as big of an issue if you were to say... land an internship at a large company where you can get those connections. If that were to happen to me, I wouldn't mind staying at VT and possibly double majoring because at that point, I know I have some measurable amount of success to take more risks on. Before, I've always been somewhat scared of taking risks, and that has caused me to miss out on experiences that would've helped me down the road. Now, I see that I need to do better, and in order to do that, I need to be risky and take a chance, even if it's a long shot.
At the end of all of this, the thing I want to do most after graduating from college is to help contribute to paying my siblings' college tuitions. My sister, who is going to eighth grade, wants to study psychology, and my brother, still in elementary school, doesn't know yet. After that, I want to retire my immigrant, naturalized parents who have worked tirelessly to get my family to the position we're in today. Only then will I be able to look back and say, "I did well."