My year 2016 in review
Every once in a while, I take a snapshot of my life. Then, I get to realize how much my life has changed in such a short timespan.
This year was a huge year for me. From many points of view. I may be late to the party, but here is a review of my year 2016.
A vegetarian lifestyle
2016 was the first complete year I lived as a vegetarian. As I made the transition, I became a lot healthier, losing a lot of weight in the process. Not every study agrees meatless habits are healthy, but it worked for me.
From a personal point of view, the transition was easy to do. I sometimes forgot I stopped eating meat. The real challenge is social, as most people have judgement about this. I wrote an article about this, which can be found here.
Internship at Ubisoft
My internship at Ubisoft as a tools programmer has been huge for me. I did learned a lot as a programmer, but I mostly learned from their organizational structure. This company is huge and the leadership behind each decision is impressive. The management to make it all work is unreal. As a future computer engineer, I wish to do some management later on. This experience will be really useful from this point of view.
I also wrote an article about my experience there, which can be found here.
Coaching ultimate frisbee at the National level
Since 2012, I am one of the head coaches of the Barons of the Seminaire de Sherbrooke in Ultimate Frisbee. No matter the success I had before, 2016 was easily my biggest year.
I decided to attend the Canadian High School Ultimate Championships with my team. I was the leader of this project, both as a coach and as a manager.
To manage such a big project, I used my previous experience and I inspired myself from what I’ve seen before. While I was preparing my team and planning my season, I was an intern at Ubisoft. I analyzed their processes and I got inspired from it. Their expertise was pretty useful.
From a performance point of view, we knew we could compete with all the teams. We had the skills and the athleticism. But we never played at that level. The opponents took advantage of our lack of experience and beat us in close games.
Nonetheless, this experience was incredible. Despite the results, everyone loved their experience and became a better player. Some players used to like the game. Now, they love it.
I wrote an article about this adventure, which is available here (only in french).
Internship at Outbox
My internship at Outbox was also huge for me. From a technical point of view, I’ve never worked with people this good in my area of expertise. But it goes further than this.
Following my studies, I consider becoming a consultant. This company hires many of them. As they are really profitable, they are able to pay for the best talents. Their consultants were honest with me and gave me some of the best tips. I will never forget them and I expect them to help me throughout my career.
My first contracts
As I aimed to become a consultant, accepting some contracts was an obvious choice. This year was the first year I billed clients.
My first client was a teacher at the Université de Sherbrooke in Civil Engineering. I had to build their website for an international conference. The website can be found here.
My second client is a company named Wineout. I help develop their application which is called Vegas Tasting. I am still a consultant for them. Their website can be found here.
My first flight, a trip to Vancouver
I’ve always had a busy life. I’ve never had the chance to go on vacation during school. During the summer, I used to work and play a lot of ultimate frisbee.
At University, I now either have school or an internship all year long. I have about 2–3 weeks in between semesters. In between summer and the fall, I decided I’d take 9 days in Vancouver. I would take the plane for the first time.
This was one of the rare moments I’ve took time to relax and regenerate. It made me realize I need to take more time for myself. Also, I considered Vancouver as a wonderful place and I can’t wait to explore the rest of the world.
My first blog posts
I like to write. I like to give my opinion. I like to share my experiences.
With time, I realized that most people make the same mistakes others have made before. As I’ve lived some unique experiences, I believed some people could benefit from them. Writing posts and starting my blog only made sense.
My facebook page can be found here. You can also follow me directly on Medium.
What’s coming up for 2017
I am really proud of my year 2016, but it was not perfect. I expect 2017 to be even better. Here is what I expect:
- A new participation at the Canadian High School Ultimate Championship. As most of my players are still eligible this year and they gained a lot of experience since then, I expect us to have much better results. These championships will be in Montreal in the beginning of may. If you want to subscribe to our results, our Facebook page can be found here.
- As a Ultimate Frisbee player, I have been offered the chance to be the captain of the second competitive team of Sherbrooke. This is an opportunity for me to bring this team to a whole new level. This summer may be my last one in Sherbrooke. If ever I leave, I want to be proud of how I’ve contributed to my home city and its development for my favorite sport.
- Deploy my first big project. As I collaborated with many people in the ultimate community, I realized there are many volunteers who gives a lot of time for the love of their sport. Considering this, I believe their tasks should be simplified. The project I am developing targets exactly this problem. Go ahead and reach me out if such a project could interest you.
- An amazing internship. I consider myself blessed to have so many opportunities. This year, I will have one internship during the fall semester. I hope to find a position in a startup, as it is an experience I would benefit from. If you do know a startup looking for a web developer, you can reach out to me through my LinkedIn profile here.
- More contracts. As I still hope to become a consultant, I want to find more clients and gain experience. If you do know businesses or anyone looking for a consultant in web development, you can reach out to me through my LinkedIn profile here.
- Another trip. This time, I want to go to San Francisco. The best timing would be during one of the major tech conferences, such as the Facebook Developers Conference, the Google I/O and the Apple WorldWide Developers Conference. This would be an amazing experience for my career. It would also be inspiring to see a society where most of the latest technological advancements are available.
- More blog posts. I hope to be more consistent in my publications, publishing at least once every month. Furthermore, I wish to make more publications about my opinions on social issues rather than personal experiences. To subscribe, you can go to my facebook page here. You can also follow me directly on Medium.
In other words, I expect 2017 to be another big year for me as well. If you read this article, chances are we know each other. Don’t hesitate to reach me out if you are interested in one of my projects or simply if you want to be part of my year 2017.
