2023 marked a year of several beginnings. A new chapter after college. A new change in perspective since then. A new resurgence in old routines brought anew. Yet, whatever came with this year, I find myself still grateful for what it brought to me. So without further adieu, let’s break down my major highlights of 2023, my primary goals for 2024, and my key life lessons of 2023.
My Three Highlights from 2023
1. I got my master’s degree in May 2023.
As I alluded to in my graduation reflection, I recently graduated with my master’s degree in statistics in May 2023; I attended California State University – East Bay for the past two years in pursuit of a graduate degree – a feat marking me as the first in my family to do so. For context, my dad (as a working class laborer) had training in the trades of construction and jewelry repair instead of a college degree and my mom and my sister only had up to a bachelor’s degree.
Furthermore, my mom and my sister never majored in STEM, for my mom pursued a business administration degree and worked as a library assistant while my sister majored in the field of communications and worked primarily in the film and music industry as a production assistant and singer-songwriter. Thus, as a lone STEM major in my immediate family, I knew how important it was to pursue my personal ambitions to the fullest and make my family proud.
In addition, I had the choice to automate away my graduate school life to the bare minimum (i.e., go to class, study, go home, study, repeat the process over and over again); however, I instead made the conscious choice to thoroughly maximize my time in college. If I were go to college for the last time, I would make sure I make the most out of my time there beyond simply getting a degree and moving on – a simple routine that would rob me of so much more the college experience could give to me.
Fortunately, I invested more time and energy into my college experience than needed and my efforts reflected well in the quality of my education since then. I joined a study group outside of class that eventually lead to me and several others co-founding and managing the first student chapter of the American Statistical Association – an organization dedicated to fostering networking, leadership, and personal and academic development opportunities for anyone interested in the field of statistics and/or biostatistics. I made new friends among my fellow classmates, embarking on various adventures across the San Francisco Bay Area (ranging from arranging a hiking trip at Point Reyes to doing karaoke nights at the indoor amusement center Dave and Buster’s). I managed to work part-time jobs and internships (i.e., teaching, assistant engineers at a wastewater facility, etc), manage a student club, and maintain a healthy social life all while keeping my grades up.
I didn’t have to make any of these decisions, yet I did because I wanted more than just what I was given; I wanted a chapter of my life I could proudly remember with people I care about and memories I could cherish as my own. Thus, when I look my framed graduate diploma from California State University – East Bay, I see a reflection of my academic accomplishments as well as the countless and highly entertaining scores of laughter, struggle, and adventure I went on for the past two years.
2. I expanded my creative outlet through the magic of R programming.
As I discovered through months of learning R programming and practice it, R programming is a surprisingly effective creative outlet in spite of its technical roots. I like that R is open-source, free to download, and diverse in the variety of libraries and tools you can download to meet your needs (i.e., ggplot2 for enhanced data visualizations, dplyr for fancy ways to wrangle data, ggspacial to plot geographical data, etc). I enjoy meeting and learning from the friendly and inclusive R community, which consists of a variety of professionals from so many different backgrounds (even non-STEM ones), especially those from the r4ds Online Learning Community. I also valued the opportunity to create and publish blogs on my experiences and projects in the R programming space – many of which I discussed in my Quarto blog The R Files. All of these opportunities provided me ways to express myself and share ideas I’m passionate about that I want to explore and discover – a lifelong journey I hope to continue moving forward into the new year and beyond.
I mean, who would’ve thought creativity, authenticity, and writing would mesh well with a technical tool that’s as fluid and flexible as the R programming language? It’s such an amazing tool that I want to keep studying and playing around with to best take my artistic and expressive talents to the next level!
3. I got back into reading.
If I ever get asked about what contributed to my success and thriving as a graduate statistician, I’d put reading in high regard as the most essential skill needed to do well as one, even more so than other skills commonly associated with it (i.e., problem-solving, critical thinking, etc). To me, reading has been the source of my growth and personal development beyond just extra practice with reading, writing, and communicating, going back to the days when I was in special education classes due to my learning disability.
As an autistic student growing up, I wasn’t able to successfully read or write well, for my brain got overwhelmed so easily from so much information given to me at once. I’d take things rather literally so jokes or sarcasm would fly over my head. I get so much information coming at me at once my mind would shut down and forget things frequently, making it hard for me to remember information I just read. I also struggled to understand human behavior and why people do what they do, which made for misunderstandings between me and other people.
Yet, while I had a lot of these struggles growing up with a learning disability, I was able to successfully work through them through the power of reading, much of which was encouraged by mother as a way to get me extra practice in communicating and thinking – skills that allowed me to get out of special education classes and perform just as well as other students.
However, reading meant more to me than just a vehicle for me to advance quickly in spite of my obstacles; it’s also an opportunity to enrich my intellect and open my mind to a variety of ideas and stories, including dabbling in areas besides what I’m studying in college – a valuable way to make yourself a well-rounded, thoughtful, and honorable person.
So far, I learned about how to make cohesive arguments and explanations in writing, speaking, and thinking through reading the book Win Every Argument: The Art of Debating, Persuading, and Public Speaking by Medhi Hassan – valuable skills for writing more concise and organized essays as well as giving cohesive PowerPoint presentations at work, in school, and so on. I rekindled my fascination with the holiday season and the spirit of giving and belief through the comforting pictures of my childhood favorite picture book The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg. I also redeveloped and reevaluated my growing conceptions of the meaning of justice, morality, and good education successfully through reading Plato’s The Republic (which I’m still reading as of December 31, 2023).
As diverse and broad my reading tastes are, they all speak to my passion for learning and heightening my personal development as a growing human being with more questions than answers – a passion I hope to continue next year and beyond.
My Three Goals for 2024
1. Build momentum for my career.
While I’m still searching for work opportunities at the time of December 31, 2023, I do hope to continue exploring, learning, and writing about my ventures into all topics data science. I want to be able to challenge myself with more complex projects (such as building a dashboard) and look into more packages and tools to enhance my data visualizations in R. I find R to be a fun, free, and easy to use programming language that allows for me to unlock my fullest potential in creativity, problem-solving, and strategic thinking when it comes to displaying and working with data. I hope that by the end of the next year, I can improve my thinking, coding, and artistry skills as an R coder that sees the intersection between art, computer science, and storytelling.
2. Pursue more hiking adventures.
Ever since I started going to college, I found it difficult to make time to wander off into nature – one of the few spaces where I can find respite, live authentically, and foster my adventurous curiosity. I like being able to turn off my phone for a moment, wander off into the woods, and go on hour-long hikes wherever my nosiness takes me. It brings back the good ol’ days when I was a kid and I used to run off at parks looking for bugs, worms, and treasure buried underneath the grass. It speaks to that youthful spirit in me that values exploration, wonder, and personal excitement, for it’s an aspect of me that drives me to live well, network with others, and free my mind up to think creatively and openly.
So once the new year hits, I hope to have the means to continue hiking more and exploring new green spaces, parks, and landscapes I have yet to see. Maybe, perhaps I could do camping trips or overlanding where I engage in lengthy road trips across the state to remote isolated landmarks, reinforcing my love, respect, and appreciation for nature itself (hence, why I believe climate action and environmental conservation is so integral in today’s highly industrialized and mechanized world).
3. Continue writing and blogging.
As I alluded to in the previous section, I started writing more (such as through my Quarto blog The R Files) where I expressed new things I learned in R, new R projects I worked on so far, and new thoughts I have about my life experiences so far.
I find writing and blogging to be liberating since I’m given a space to express my own thoughts and bring attention to ideas I find useful and relevant that I want to share with others – the essence of building a thriving, loving, and inclusive community. For context, I grew up wanting to see some level of representation of my views and experiences in the media (partly due to my learning disability, my Vietnamese heritage, and my differing views on the value of the college experience), having found blogs and videos that I may resonate with, but tend to feel too exclusive or disconnecting for me to understand and relate to. So writing and blogging myself are ways in which I express views I feel important to draw attention to as well as create different avenues for me to share ideas, learn from others, and practice my communication skills.
With writing and blogging bringing so much success and personal fulfillment to me so far, I hope to continue doing so with the possibility of exploring other mediums to further this endeavor (i.e., more YouTube videos from me, doing online presentatons, etc). While such ideas are still in the works at the moment, they would certainly allow me to express myself in a variety of different ways and speak to me love of community, learning, and authentic expression – ideals I cherish that I want everyone else to have as well.
My Life Lessons from 2023
I save this section for last because quite frankly, I believe these life lessons below will play a pivotal role in helping me navigate the challenging and rewarding experiences of the unknown future – the year 2024. I have this long-held notion that life is filled with uncertainty, no matter how I can be of the outcome. Even with my goals outlined for 2024, I can expect rapid changes that challenge the very notion of what I want for myself and who I want to be as a person.
However, in spite of these potentially unexpected fluctuations I might face moving forward, I believe these life lessons below can successfully serve as a guiding north star to light a path through the likely murky cloudiness of 2024 and to where I want to arrive – the life lessons I learned this year that I’ll describe below.
1. Be patient.
Every action or experience takes time to develop and pay dividends for creating a better future for me. It can feel tempting to want simple and quick shortcuts to my goals, given how frustrating the primrose path can seem to me with every obstacle, every test, and every constraint thrown at me.
Yet, while it can intimidate me to face such challenges moving forward, I need to take a moment every now and then to slow down and recognize what I have now that I can appreciate. Smell the roses, celebrate my wins so far, and give myself some time to rest a bit before getting back into the grind to the top. It’ll make the moment I reach victory all the more sweeter and nourishing.
2. Be community-oriented.
While surviving takes precedence over everything else (an understandable notion in today’s economy), don’t forget the root of what generally makes life so precious – having friends, family, and loved ones to meet, learn from, and enjoy life with. I sometimes have to tell myself, “Look around you. Did these buildings build themselves? Did these delicious foods, drinks, and items suddenly grow on trees (or if they did, by themselves)? Did these memories appear out of thin air? No, they didn’t. Something helped to bring them into existence - people. People with backgrounds, ideas, and experiences of their own who have spent years committing themselves to ideals bigger than themselves. People who have brought you into this world, taught you the skills and knowledge that helped you succeed in your life, and most importantly, gave you experiences worth remembering.”
Yes, there are incompatible people for sure in any world I live in, but for every such person I may meet, there will always be wonderful people out there worth looking for that value genuine connection, growth, and adventure. Therefore, I must always remember to cherish opportunities to build, maintain, and expand community wherever I can find it; it’s through community that I can make possible a better life, a better understanding, and a better world for me, you, and everyone else on this planet.
3. Be grateful.
I need to always remember where I came from and how far I came to get to this moment. Sometimes, it can feel easy to think I’m not enough or that my life experiences pale in comparison to other people. I might not on the surface seem as successful as some of my highly regarded peers. I might wish my childhood was as great as other people’s childhoods. I might also want to change aspects of myself so other people can accept me for who I am. All these thoughts reflect some of my growing insecurities as a young adult who still doesn’t know who I am, where I belong, and what my life purpose is.
While it can be valuable to learn from others and seek charge in myself, my life, and my world, I need to always remember that I’m made special. I’m the culmination of my thoughts, actions, and experiences – some of which were brought on by me, others by the people and circumstances around me. Whatever the case may be, it’s not realistic to simply categorize any single one as completely bad or good when they all contribute in apparent or mysterious to shape me and my life.
A good way to put it would be to think of it as a storm coming to hit an island. A storm itself, no matter how hard I try to avoid it or prepare for it, can be devastating. It can damage acres of grass, homes, and wildlife within fractions of a second, sparing nothing else in its path. At the same time, it can also be an opportunity for trees to take root, animals to show off their might and resilience, and nature itself to adapt to better prepare for it. They never asked for this storm, yet it came to them. So are any number of life experiences I may never want at all, yet they came to me and made themselves apart of my life.
As a result, while I may not always get to choose what options I have at the dinner table, I can always choose what I want to take with me. I can treat failure as simply for what it is or an opportunity to learn what to do better next time. I can see a real life problem for what it is or an opportunity to draw attention to issues I care about (perhaps, even start or join a community yourself). I can see a “wasted” experience as a sunken cost or an opportunity to learn more about myself, what I want, and what works best for me. While seemingly unrealistic, maintaining focus on what I can take from each and every moment can give me the strength, humility, and hope needed to continue growing as a person.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my year in review and reflection for 2023. May we wish the best for the new year (and beyond)! So keep dreaming, keep exploring, and most of all, keep learning!
