Finished a semester!
The first semester has finally ended! During the second half of the semester, I went through numerous interviews, final exams, and trips. It was a fulfilling period, and I can’t wait to share my experiences with you.
Academic Progress
All of my grades had came out. I got all A’s except for an A- in Distributed Systems. I think the main reason is that I had made careless mistakes in midterm and finals, and I could earn an A if I had been more careful. But I did learn a lot from the courses, the grade is just a result and there is no need to place too much importance on them.
Personal Development
During the second half of the semester, I didn’t spend much time reading due to the heavy course load. However, I still managed to set aside some time to read. I started two books, “Why Nations Fail” and “The Story of Philosophy”, but I haven’t finished them yet. Both books brought me inner peace and valuable insights. I also brought “On Writing Well” to Taiwan and planned to finish the book during the winter break. It is one of the best books about English writing, and I hope my writing skills will improve after finishing the book.
New York Trip
The trip to New York is the only trip I have during the semester. I went to see my college classmates and friends know from exchange program, and they took me to several iconic places in New York and had great food.
My first impression about New York is hustling. Living at a small mid-west town for several months, I was not used to the noise of traffic anymore. There were lots of traffic at every moment. Another impression is multidimensional. Just like other modern cities such as Hong Kong and Singapore, there are lots of skyscrapers on the Manhattan island, lots of fancy restaurants and tourist people, but you can also see homeless people laying on the street and on the subway.
Among all the attractions I have visited, I like Top of the Rock the most, where you can enjoy the city view without the block of glass at the top of Empire Building. I also love the high line and the little island, where people can have a walk and enjoy the city view. I found myself attracted to the park in the city, where you can found natural view and tranquility. MoMA is also one of my favorite place, with the explanation of each pieces of art by my friend, I learned a lot of artists from him and started to know how to watch paintings.
Upcoming goals
For the upcoming semester, as I secured the internship for this summer, my goals will be maintaining good habits such as working out and reading, taking courses from the field where I want to learn more and meet more people. The first semester went so fast that I realized that my student life has only one year left, so I want to make good use of the precious time to make more friends, as friendships are more pure in this period.
