First Blog
Hi there! Welcome to my blog. I don’t know when or what I will write, but I’ll probably write when it strikes my fancy. I’ll probably going to express things in tech, some in motivation, and a little of philosophy. So to help you decide whether or not you want to follow me, let me give you some background. Currently I’m studying electrical engineering at Drexel University. The reason why I got into electrical engineering was because, I was apart of FIRST team 357, Royal Assault, and that’s where I got my inspiration to study electrical engineering. I don’t think I would be where I am now without the support I got throughout my time throughout the team. There were great mentors and great friends that I made. The one thing I took away from all of it though was the motto “Dare Mighty Things”, essentially it was from a shorten version of what Theodore Roosevelt said.
“ Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure… than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.” — Theodore Roosevelt
Every time I read this quote, it gives me a sort of fire to say the impossible is possible, no matter what the cost was. There’s been plenty of times where I bite off more than I can chew, but in the end it’s the work you put in to try to achieve, because even though you didn’t meet the bar, at least you went above average. Now I consider myself to be a bit of a procrastinator and a very lazy person. I remember one thing one of my mentors said about me is that I will work hard at anything I want, and drop whatever I hate. To this day I believe that’s how you need to live your life. Work hard on one thing and whole ass your most hated activity. You have a unknown amount of time on Earth and if you want your life to be valued and not reflect on your what ifs, well you better start working towards your goals. So remember,
“Work hard on your dreams and whole ass on mediocre.” — Kevin Phan
Or if you want something that actually makes sense,
“ I reject your reality and substitute my own.” — Adam Savage
For me the reality is the idea of achieving the minimum in whatever I am passionate about and substituting it with excellence.
Now why I decide to study electrical engineering is because I am fascinated in creating applications that can improve efficiency and self-awareness, so I’m trying to focus on the field of robotics. I have done a good amount of automation, but by no means am I a professional nor skilled, at the very least competent. I’ve mastered the basics and now I’m trying to learn the advanced techniques. All of these skills that I’m learning are great, but what’s the point of having them if you’re not going to pass them down. I have a desire to teach the next generations about STEM education and help them achieve their potential. It’s thanks to the founder of FIRST, Dean Kamen. You might not have heard of him, but if you did, great! Essentially what Dean Kamen did was that he created the segway and yes he’s very much alive and he created a plethora of medical applications and created his company called DEKA. They’re working on a lot of cool applications and so much so that I can’t cover, so google it.
There’s one quote from Dean Kamen that has that really resonated with me to try to teach the next generation.
“ The future is going to require really smart people. What we think are crises today probably will be no big deal, and we have no idea what will really be crises in the future.” — Dean Kamen
That’s essentially my background and now you can decide whether or not you want to keep reading what I write or pass on it. It won’t always be on tech or on teaching the next generation. It could be me writing about rice. I’m asian I like to eat rice and there’s so many ways you can prepare it! Either way I hope you enjoyed reading this and if you have anything you want to share anything with me, contact me at Kevin.Phan.Medium@gmail.com
