About Me — Julia L. Lin
The L. is for Lengthening my very short name (and Lee). Likes to make things (happen)!
Bio
Hiya! At 24 years old, I feel both naively too young and cynically too old in life, but I think I have enough to write an About Me for who I am now.
I live in Philadelphia, have spent a fifth of my life thus far at the University of Pennsylvania studying mechanical engineering and product design, and currently, work from home at a health-tech startup as a PM. I would rather spend my time and energy understanding WHY I work, rather than WHAT or HOW to do my job.
One of my personal life goals is to travel to have been to as many countries as my current age. After I reach that goal for the first time, I will have to maintain a lifelong habit of travel and exploration to travel to at least 1 new country a year. At 24 years old, I have visited 21 countries so far, and this passport privilege has so fundamentally changed the way I think about the world. I feel a personal responsibility to think bigger and make a larger impact beyond myself.
My Medium Goals
I am writing on Medium to be represented online by my written thoughts and expressed values, not just by my Facebook photos and LinkedIn job updates.
The longest paper I wrote in school was a 5-page double-spaced sociology paper, so I would love more writing practice to improve my fluency with written communication. Ultimately, it is another medium of storytelling that I feel is necessary for me to improve to better express myself.
Another goal is to indirectly document my startup journey and crash course through professional and product, design, engineering, and healthcare topics. If I am thinking enough about an idea, I want to start a habit of gathering my thoughts, supporting with research, and writing Medium articles.
I love to learn about a myriad of topics but have a professional interest in product, design, engineering, healthcare, and behavioral and consumer psychology. With my current role as a PM at an early-stage startup, I have the ability to create fast feedback loops to test new ideas in these fields and develop my personal point of view on them.
I am currently cocooned in a warm silk blanket in my reading nook, where I take my afternoon breaks to read in natural light. Benefits of a flexible work from home schedule!
In my reading queue:
- Upstream by Chip & Dan Heath (just finished)
- Baudelaire: Selected Verse (for my occasional poetic mood)
- Hooked by Nir Eyal (for when I’m working on design problems)
- Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari (for when I’m thinking about life)
- Inspired by Marty Cagan (for learning more about my PM role)
- Paradox and Imperatives in Health Care by Jeffrey Bauer and Mark Hagland (from 2008, but still helps me when I want to think more about healthcare)
I read multiple books at once, but try to change the time of day and location that I read each book to keep them distinct. My reading habits mimic the chaos in my brain, where ideas start and stop and swirl subconsciously. I am an active reader, and often, reading helps me solve work challenges that have been in the back of my mind unresolved. One of the reasons writing is a challenge for me is my tendency to multitrack rather than focus on a single idea from introduction to conclusion.
I have introduced myself now; how about you? If you read this and think we share interests, send me a link to your About Me, or message me at linjulialee@gmail.com!
