Coming Decisions
Jeremi to decide about projects; Luca to decide about studying abroad
Welcome back to Jeremi and Luca’s Newsletter, an update every Sunday from two friends connected by a relentless desire to learn.
Luca: Here or There
This week, the semester abroad program application opened.
I’ve been weighing going abroad for a while now. I knew that if I did, it’d likely be during the spring of my junior year. Any hesitation I had was, for the most part, unfounded—coming more from a lack of thought put in than anything.
But as I’ve been putting said thought into the decision, an interesting feeling has emerged: a feeling that I’ve increasingly been able to leverage the resources and opportunities at my disposal here at Cal.
Each semester I’m here, I learn how to do the next one better. What follows is that each semester has been more valuable than the last.
I’ve pivoted my major a few times. I arrived intending to study Business, but taking a few math and computer science classes steered me toward Operations Research. So already, I feel behind… only two more years to make the most out of my major.
I’ve learned how to choose great classes and I’ve developed relationships with some of my professors, opening doors to grad classes and a wealth of knowledge that continues to prove helpful in navigating my time at this school.
Long story short: I feel like I just got here and yet there’s so little time left.
By the time I’d be going abroad a year from now, I’ll have full access to interesting upper division classes and who knows what else. That’s why I feel hesitation. There are endless opportunities here, and surely more to discover.
I applied anyway, to King’s College London. I don’t doubt that a semester abroad would be hugely rewarding. And I don’t even need to make a decision now.
But because each term at Cal is more valuable than the last, each term is also more costly to miss than the last. And that’s of course a good dilemma to have.
Quick note: After writing this mid-week but before posting it on Sunday, my public policy professor made an exciting case for attending King’s College—and he said that if I get into the program, it would be a no-brainer to go. Will update when I hear back!
Jeremi: This or That
Since last quarter ended, I have been pivoting between projects.
Right before my last final in March, I walked into James Preiss’s office. He is the professor who taught the graduate class I just took on Robot Learning. I wanted to convince him to work with me on a research project in his lab.
Going into it, I thought my odds of success were low. I told myself that I’d focus on another graduate-level class next quarter if he didn’t want to work with me on this project.
To my surprise, we spent over two hours discussing the idea, and in the end he decided he would support me on the project.
While Luca and I were in Costa Rica, I began investigating the hardware requirements, and sent emails to try to get access to different clusters of computers.
As the new quarter started, James continued to be supportive of this project. But he was also very busy—teaching a large undergraduate class, and recruiting new PhD students. Our communication naturally slowed down because of this.
I’m very aware of how short the quarters are. I only have eight weeks until summer, and I want to make the most of them. I wondered: should I shift my focus to one of my other classes (a project-based course on AI), go full throttle on that project, then work with James over the summer?
The graduate class I had planned to take ended up not being as interesting as I’d hoped. In my head, working on the research project or the class project was the best use of my time this quarter.
In the class project, my teammates and I were jumping between different ideas, some related to self-driving cars, others related to drones, and others related to large language models completing mathematical proofs.
In other words, we were all over the place.
In the meantime, I met with James again. He gave me feedback on how I was doing on the initial research idea—and generously offered to meet with me for an hour each week to help guide the project.
Which brings me to now.
Within the research project, our scope has been constantly shifting. In the class project, my team and I haven’t even pinned down an initial starting point. On a personal level, I don’t really know how best to prioritize this quarter.
I am very grateful to James for supporting me on the research project. I’m taking that support (and the project) very seriously.
Still, I am left with the feeling of a big jigsaw puzzle this quarter. There are a lot of moving pieces. A lot of them are very promising. I just don’t quite yet know how to fit them together.
Luca…GO!….right? Jeremi….whatever you choose, you’ll end up grateful that you chose what you chose! All sound like the mind-opening experiences that enrich our lives.
I appreciate you both sharing about your questions and uncertainty while not yet knowing what you’ll decide. Often we can wait until we’ve tied everything in a bow before revealing to others that we even had a difficulty. Your openness real time is inspiring.