winter quarter 2020
In February, my college church fellowship hosted a worship night. The set list consisted of nearly 20 songs and preparation took place over the course of several weeks. Balancing this with studies and Husky badminton practices made for a tight schedule, but this night was definitely one of the most meaningful experiences I have had this year. When I was first approached to help out with my fellowship's worship night, I was very reluctant. Not only am I quite shy, but I really wasn't confident in my vocal skills and felt that I wasn't the right person to serve in this capacity. But I've learned that even though I may not think I am enough, God thinks I am enough and more. Even though I might not feel capable, my ability to worship God and join with others in worship is not contingent upon what I feel. This was an experience where I stepped out of my comfort zone--not of my own accord, but through the confidence of God. This year, I participated in my first ever hackathon. I found it daunting in the beginning because I was working with a team of people I didn't know, so I wasn't sure what to expect and what the team dynamic would be. It was also my first time using Figma. I ended up loving my team! Although we all had very different skillsets, I was proud of the way we were able to collaborate and delegate tasks effectively. We had 10 hours to design something based off of the theme for this year's WINFO Hackathon: "Driven by Difference". We created a navigation app prototype providing users information regarding route and location safety based on a calculated safety score. The app is also a community space where users can inform and stay informed through features like route reviews and real-time alerts. Popular navigation apps like Google Maps or Waze are great for providing users with the most time-efficient route options, but they lack information regarding safety. My contributions to the prototype were the alerts page, the user profile, route reviews, and the logo design. |
As a member of the UW badminton team, I participated in this year's Husky Open, one of the largest tournaments in the Pacific Northwest with teams from colleges around the country traveling to Seattle to compete. Although I had been quite active in junior tournaments, it had been two years since I had trained and played any tournament so I was super nervous. Combined with preparation for the Worship Night, I was also trying to get back in shape for Husky Open. In the weeks leading up to the tournament, I began running again and I would come to Husky Club early to get some footwork practice in. I would stay after Team practice on Saturdays to do some extra exercises (jump rope, push ups). The week before the tournament, I had been busy with midterms so I didn't have time to play badminton all week. I headed to the gym to get some games in, and ended up staying till the IMA closed to help set up the gym for the big event the next day. The first day of the tournament was a bit of a struggle because I had to bus to the church for worship practice at 9:30 am, and then take a Lyft back to UW for my event at 12:30, but it was all worth it in the end! For Husky Open, I competed in two events, Open Women's Singles and Open Women's Doubles. Overall, I was satisfied with my performance. I performed better in singles than I expected, and although I was a bit disappointed with my doubles performance, I felt so lucky to be able to play this tournament with my partner Rina, who was so kind and played amazingly! I walked away from this with a bit of prize money and motivation to improve my playing and work harder. I wasn't sure if I'd continue badminton in college, but Husky Open was definitely a memorable and rewarding experience that renewed my passion for the sport.
INFO 200 was perhaps the most fun class I took this quarter, and I really enjoyed the way this class was structured. The main project for the first half of the quarter was a report analyzing an existing information system with a partner. My partner and I chose to analyze Google Authenticator, admittedly due to my personal fascination with it. It seemed quite rudimentary in design as well as function in comparison to other two-factor authentication applications, which was very surprising to me. The limitations and critiques we found with Google Authenticator thus inspired us to redesign Google Authenticator for our final project. The video above is our 90 second pitch for the virtual project fair. In the end, our project was awarded the Innovative badge by the TAs of the course. My contributions to this project included the writing of the reports, all architecture diagrams, all Figma designs and prototyping, and creating/editing the pitch video. |
At the beginning of Winter quarter, I was honestly a ball of stress and anxiety. CSE 143 was a class I had dreaded taking because of how time-consuming and difficult I predicted it would be. LING 200 was a class I signed up for, just for the heck of it, but I really had no idea what to expect. INFO 200 was a class that had been incredibly difficult for me to get into, and because of that, I put alot of pressure on myself to do well. Aside from classes, I felt that I had so much going on outside of school as well. I was getting more involved in my college fellowship (attending weekly Bible studies, meeting with my accountability group weekly, attending worship practice weekly), and I was getting busier with badminton (going to Husky Team practice each week, attending club if I could on Mondays and Thursdays, going to the gym for extra practice). There was a lot going on, to say the least. This quarter of college was definitely testing, but it was also tremendously rewarding. I experienced so many new things, I met so many new people, and I was able to immerse myself into the communities I found at UW.
One of the highlights of this quarter actually began as something I was so NOT looking forward to. My first career fair--the Informatics-specific one! It was probably one of the most intimidating environments I had ever been in, but I was so glad that I pushed myself to go. As a freshman, I was scared, had nothing useful on my resume, and was not even in the Informatics major, but I decided to go because I decided this was the year I wanted to make more of my mistakes. It is always okay to make mistakes you can learn from, but it is especially okay to make mistakes as a freshman. (Or at least that's what I told myself :)) I honestly had no idea what I was doing. I would go up to the tables and introduce myself and ask about the different companies while I could hear other students talking about technical concepts and answering technical questions. Despite all this, I ended up having a really great conversation with the representatives from the US Navy Strategic Systems program, and I left the fair feeling excited and motivated to keep learning as much as I could.
The end of this quarter actually ended abruptly with COVID-19 quarantining. I moved back home. A week later, I returned my keys to Lander--goodbye to the fifth floor of Terry Hall. In a way, Winter quarter marked the end of my freshman year. No doubt, there are so many uncertainties right now. But as I'm writing this, I am simply overcome with so much gratitude for everything I've been a part of in this whirlwind of a quarter.
One of the highlights of this quarter actually began as something I was so NOT looking forward to. My first career fair--the Informatics-specific one! It was probably one of the most intimidating environments I had ever been in, but I was so glad that I pushed myself to go. As a freshman, I was scared, had nothing useful on my resume, and was not even in the Informatics major, but I decided to go because I decided this was the year I wanted to make more of my mistakes. It is always okay to make mistakes you can learn from, but it is especially okay to make mistakes as a freshman. (Or at least that's what I told myself :)) I honestly had no idea what I was doing. I would go up to the tables and introduce myself and ask about the different companies while I could hear other students talking about technical concepts and answering technical questions. Despite all this, I ended up having a really great conversation with the representatives from the US Navy Strategic Systems program, and I left the fair feeling excited and motivated to keep learning as much as I could.
The end of this quarter actually ended abruptly with COVID-19 quarantining. I moved back home. A week later, I returned my keys to Lander--goodbye to the fifth floor of Terry Hall. In a way, Winter quarter marked the end of my freshman year. No doubt, there are so many uncertainties right now. But as I'm writing this, I am simply overcome with so much gratitude for everything I've been a part of in this whirlwind of a quarter.