Summer 2017 in Review
After scratching the heck out of my writing itch with the travel blog that I maintained throughout my past semester abroad, I’ve realized that, despite going into engineering, I’ve got a pretty large love of writing. Perhaps it’s not a love of writing as much as it is one of documenting. But I don’t like taking notes in class, so it can’t be that. Maybe I just like listening to myself speak in my own head, and writing is an easy forum for that. That’s probably the most likely. I’ve already started rambling, so I suppose now is a good time to introduce what I’m trying to do with starting up this space.
I think that it is very beneficial to take good account of where one is in life on some general cadence. I’ve attempted keeping a diary (ahem, journal) a couple times, but have always given up on it, as there’s not enough accountability involved to keep me consistent. For that reason (plus that writing itch I mentioned above), I’ve been considering creating a blog to try and track my life progress for the past couple years. The final straw came this summer, when I learned of a co-worker’s Medium blog who did things in a very similar way to how I imagined a future blog of mine looking (lots of credit to him for this, as his style greatly influenced mine). All this together led me to create this space in hopes of adding a few posts throughout the year, likely after Summer/Fall/Spring, in order to document the big developments in my life.
While I’m sure these posts will include some degree of just recapping the previous few months of my life, I’m hoping to also delve into more retrospectives, goal setting and reviewing, and general taking inventory on my life on a more than “this is what I’ve done” level. I believe it’s important (and fun!) to document experiences, but to truly grow and become a better person, self-analysis is critical, and I’m hoping for this blog to achieve that.
With that said, let’s get started with my Summer 2017 in Review.
The Internship
As stated above, for the Spring of 2017 I was exploring Europe while studying abroad. At the close of the semester, my plane out of Europe headed directly to Washington DC, landing June 11. The very next day (in fact, about 12 hours after landing) I would start my jet-lagged internship in the nation’s capital at Applied Predictive Technologies, or APT.
APT is a software company whose flagship product is a piece of software called Test and Learn. The software is licensed by big Fortune 500 companies, who use it to help them make business decisions. At its core, Test and Learn is a really fancy data processor that takes in massive quantities of information from APT’s clients (things like transaction logs, customer demographics, etc.), makes sense of it all, then uses some funky combination of computer science and math on all the info to answer business questions for its clients.
Some questions might be “Will this Buy One, Get One promo be profitable?”, or “What demographic should I market my advertising to in Australia?”. APT has actually had a say in a couple pretty iconic initiatives, such as Subway’s $5 Footlong and McDonald’s all day breakfast. Not bad, huh?
I was a Quality Assurance Engineer at APT. I loved the position, and spent my days doing a combination of lots of math, some programming, and plenty of “creative brainstorming”; it’s hard to define this last one , but a large part of my job was trying to find off-the-wall ways to “break” the software, pointing out the discovered “bugs” to the software engineers, who would then fix them.
Outside of my day-to-day responsibilities, APT was a fantastic company to work at. Besides a pretty solid salary for an intern, they provided practically all my meals, had an amazing work culture (the median age was 24!), and organized tons of APT-sponsored events within Washington DC, ranging from kayaking the Potomac to taking a segway tour of the monuments.
I loved the company, made some great friends, and learned a lot. It sparked a realization in me of the importance of being computer-fluent in the current age, and I’ve made it a new goal of mine to, despite not being a CS major or on track to be a Software Engineer, maintain a pretty high level of understanding when it comes to all the mysteries of coding.
The summer ended well, with me getting a return offer both for next summer as an intern, as well as a separate offer to return as a full-time employee after graduation. I feel a little too far away from graduation to dive into any commitments (and accepting an internship return offer would practically lock me into full time due to their incentive system), and so I’ll be taking my time and applying and interviewing at new companies throughout the Fall. That said, APT is great, and I’d be super happy to be back there in a year.
Washington DC
With only spending 45 hours on average at APT during the week, that left over 120 hours each week to explore the nation’s capital! I took huge advantage of this and really acted like a tourist every weekend throughout the summer, slowly checking off the many museums, monuments, memorials, and more from across the city.
I was lucky enough to live in George Washington University housing (10/10 location, 5/10 quality, 0/10 cost) smack-dab in the middle of Foggy Bottom, the center of DC. I was a 10-minute walk from the Mall.
Without delving through the details of all of these places, here are some of the top spots I experienced in and around DC:
- Air and Space Museum
- Alexandria Waterfront
- Billy Goat Trail Hike
- Bubble Soccer @ Virginia Highlands Park
- FDR Memorial (very underrated — maybe my favorite memorial)
- George Washington’s Mount Vernon (it’s no Monticello, but still good)
- Jefferson Memorial
- Kayaking the Potomac River
- Korean War Memorial
- Lincoln Memorial
- MLK Jr. Memorial
- Museum of American History
- Museum of Natural History (my favorite of the museums)
- National Archives (the Declaration of Independence and Constitution!)
- National Zoo (2x, because Mackenzie has an obsession for bison)
- Nationals Baseball Game (vs. the Braves!)
- The White House (tour courtesy of my roommate who worked there)
- Theodore Roosevelt Island (also very underrated)
- U.S. Capitol (tour courtesy of my friend who worked there)
- Vietnam War Memorial
- Washington Monument
I also ate at a ridiculous number of great restaurants in the area (particularly in Arlington, and, lucky for me, on APT’s dime). The dankest places to eat in the area were:
- Ambar (Balkan cuisine with $35 unlimited small plates option)
- Bluejacket (microbrewery — cool atmosphere & great priced craft beers)
- Cava Mezze (Mediterranean tapas with great brunch)
- Kapnos (awesome Greek tapas)
- Mala Tang (🔥 hot pot)
- Rus Uz (Russian/Uzbek food — great kebabs)
- Sequoia (expensive and tasty seafood with awesome location)
- Uncle Julio’s (fajitas and great tableside guac)
So there ya have it, a couple of unnecessarily extensive lists on what I saw, did, and ate. Needless to say, I loved the city. The memorials and museums are fantastic, the food is great, and there’s tons of outdoors opportunities just a short drive away. So, yeah — it’s young, vibrant, and has endless things to do. What’s not to love for a 20-something year old?
With that summary of what I did thoroughly in the books, let’s switch gears a little bit and talk about what I accomplished, starting with the goals I had going in and how I did on them.
Goals
For the last couple years, I’ve kept close account of my goals, specifically splitting them into three compartments: a) 1-year goals, b) 5-year goals, and c)10 year goals. Within these, I try to categorize my goals into meaningful bits. My typical categories are Academic, Physical, Career, Personal, Financial, and Spiritual. Every year I’ve created a new set of 1-year goals, as well as reflecting on my progress towards my longer-term goals and adjusting them as necessary.
Because of this, however, 4-month goals (as this space will hopefully be up-kept thrice yearly) are new to me! Therefore, my review of my Summer 2017 goals is going to be a little weak, as specific goals for this past summer were never set. Let’s still give it a shot though:
Goal Review — Summer 2017
- Receive a return offer from APT: Check! As I mentioned above, I received an offer both to come back as an intern in Summer 2018, as well as to start full-time in 2019 after my December 2018 graduation.
- Begin working out again: Check! I picked up a membership to the Gold’s by work this summer and was able to go 3x each week.
- Be a tourist in DC: Check! Based off the list of experiences I had and places I went above, I think it’s fair to say that this goal was thoroughly accomplished.
Goal Setting — Fall 2017
- Get a minimum GPA of 3.55: This is the minimum GPA to graduate with Highest Honors (Tech’s equivalent of summa cum laude). I’m currently sitting at a 3.52, just shy of the minimum. Therefore, in order to get this up to that 3.55 minimum by graduation, I’ll need to get >3.55 this semster!
- Maintain working out on a normal basis: This is gonna be a tough one, as working out takes the back seat to most of my other priorities, but it’s important to stay in good shape and provides some powerful stress-relief.
- Read two books: Not the most ambitious goal, but for years I’ve wanted to read books outside of those mandatory for classes, and I always find it hard to keep up with so many other life responsibilities. Hopefully I can get this 2 books per 4 month number up in the future, but starting slow!
- Design a personal website: I’m starting a couple programming projects to sharpen my skills, and this one’s at the top of my list. I would love to have a central hub where I can organize all things me.
My WotY (Word of the Year)
This is a practice that I took up a couple years ago after the Daltons shared it with me — I believe it originally came from their church. It’s pretty simple: you choose a single word each January that describes something you want to focus on for the next year. I print mine out and post it above my desk, forcing me to look at it a bajillion times per day. Last year, my word was self-discipline.
My WotY this year has been spontaneous, something that was particularly chosen in the context of my semester abroad in the Spring. I wanted to be open to new opportunities and to not turn down anything. While I think I did an okay job of this over my semester abroad (there are a few instances when I thought specifically about my WotY when having to make a quick decision), it dropped off pretty considerably once returning back states-side.
That said, I think that a lot of this can just be attributed to my personality. I mean, come on, I’m sitting here with a list of 10-year goals — it’s not in my nature to be spontaneous. I’m a planner, an organizer, and trying to be spontaneous just isn’t true to that. A word like opportunistic (we’re gonna ignore the negative connotations of this word…) may have been better, and is what I’m going to pivot to for the remainder of the year. I hope to be take advantage of more opportunities and capitalize on things that present themselves to me, but I don’t think its fair to my nature to strive to be random or spontaneous, as that’s just not how I am.
My Learning Focus
Jeez, when I write them all out like this it really feels like I have too much I’m keeping track of between the goals, the words, and now this. I promise when I’m not cramming it all together in one space it’s much more reasonable!
Somewhat similar to a WotY, for the past few years I have attempted to find a “learning focus” and dedicate as much of my free time to that thing as possible. This is something that I (mostly) won’t learn in my classes — something that takes a personal dedication to learning — and tends to be a pretty broad field. I’ve been doing this for a few years now, and previous foci (can’t believe I actually just used that word) have been:
- Dressing well (2014)
- Personal finance (2015)
- Weightlifting (2016)
This year, my focus has shifted to something more school-ish, but that I won’t really learn from my studies: programming! Knowing that my internship this past summer would be far more technical than anything I’ve experienced, I decided to ramp up my personal exposure to the world of tech, and have been reading guides, books, and blogs; watching endless YouTube videos; and consulting my more-technically-savvy friends whenever possible. While I’ve taken a couple CS classes, I never have really gotten it — I’ve been able to write code but not to truly understand it. Changing that has been my goal, and so far it’s going great.
I’m no CS major, but I learned a ton this summer, and continue to feel more and more comfortable with programming. Starting on a couple personal projects has been a huge help, and has allowed me to see how different parts of the code world fit together to create a product. I’m excited to see where I am at the end of the year.
While there’s not enough to have a dedicated Projects section in here, the one project in particular that I’ve really dedicated some time to is a website that was inspired by my new-found love for travel. At the moment, it allows me to upload travel destinations (historic/cultural sites, natural sites, cities, countries, etc.) with descriptions and pictures, and pretty easily peruse them. It’s serving as a home base for my collected “must-see” travel destinations that I find from a huge variety of sources, and has been pretty fun to work on. The project currently uses C#, SQL Server, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. It has been an awesome way for me to learn a lot about the basics of web development.
Retrospective
Lastly, beyond all the overview of what I’ve done, the goals, the words, the foci, the projects, and everything else, let’s just to give some context to my life and how I’m feeling about everything. As is probably a little too evident right now, I’m an incredibly goal-oriented type of guy, but I think it’s important to stay grounded in the reality that, at the end of the day, the ultimate goal is for me to be happy and to spread that happiness to others.
This summer was great. I really loved APT and can totally envision myself working there both next summer and post-graduation. DC is a fantastic city and I could absolutely live there, especially during my 20’s. Big picture career-wise, I really think this is the field I want to start in. Big data is the thing right now, and I want to get into the industry, learn the technicalities of it, work my way up to a managerial position, and go from there. I can’t imagine a career of being a Quality Assurance Engineer, but I can absolutely imagine one of working in the data industry as a managerial position on an Engineering team, and APT is the perfect entrance to that. This summer has made me really excited about my professional future.
As a whole, my friendships were okay this summer. My friendship with Zach, however, was definitely strengthened. He interned at the White House, and we lived together at GWU, spending plenty of evenings chatting, going to trivia, or checking out the city together. I do wish I had kept up with other friends better, whether it be through text, Facebook, or phone calls — especially friends from home who I’m so bad at keeping up with. I let some friendships that had quieted throughout my semester abroad remain dormant, and should’ve been more active in maintaining them. On the opposite side of that coin, however, I’m really excited to dive back into those friendships in the upcoming semester.
My relationship with Mackenzie has been the strongest it’s ever been, and we’re both incredibly excited about the prospects DC affords us. She’s looking into graduate schools in the city to get a Masters in Environmental Management, and will be applying in the coming couple semesters. Mack was able to visit me a lot this summer — 4 or 5 times in total — and it was during these weekends that the bulk of my exploration happened. Also, since it hasn’t been mentioned yet, I got the chance to head down to Texas to stay on her extended family’s ranch for a long and relaxing weekend in the middle of July. This trip had me meeting the remainder of her family (her dad’s sister and her family), and generally having a great time relaxing and getting to know the extended Daltons better (and eating a lot of food).
Family relationships are as strong as ever, but I remain pretty physically distant. From going to Europe January 4th, to flying straight to DC on the way back, and to now going straight to school, I’ve spent very little time in my hometown. Specifically, I’ve only slept in my own bed a total of 4 nights so far in 2017, which, while I suppose it is good practice for the soon-to-be reality of me moving away for good, hasn’t been easy (especially for my Mom — love you!). That said, the calls have been frequent, and, thanks to my Mom’s chattiness, long and exhaustive. This is something that won’t be ending soon.
I’m excited to get back to school, and confident that the existence of a couple standing job offers (I still have one from Lenovo from Summer 2016) won’t dissuade me from giving it my all. That goal of a 3.55+ GPA should keep me in line, and my innate curiosity is typically enough for me to enjoy most of my classes. We’ll see though — it’s possible this is just me spit balling and I’ll have no motivation whatsoever from the get-go.
Lastly, travel has been something that’s been on my mind a ton since being back to the US of A. I’ve been trying to plan something big for after graduation, and am looking to delay my start at whatever job I take for a few months (or more…) and trek around Southeast Asia with Mackenzie. This is something that I think about, honestly, every day, and it’s become something that I truly believe is going to happen. It makes me that much more excited for my graduation to come next December. Regardless, travel (or at least thinking about it due to the inflexibility of student-hood) has become an important part of my life.
All in all, it’s been a great, busy, challenging, and exciting summer. Both my personal and professional life has evolved, and I feel ready to get back into the game of school. Going from here, I’m looking forward to reconnecting with friends, working hard in my classes to get a strong GPA, independently increasing my programming skills, staying in good physical shape, reading more, being opportunistic, and, most importantly, having FUN and being HAPPY!!
Thanks for reading!
Jacob
