commit 28519ae9d843fbac25146a76dc009ef6e834e11e
parent 6b5ccaa0fd5cdadef92cea58ebf3c092dd4b8880
Author: FIGBERT <figbert@figbert.com>
Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2025 15:40:11 -0800
Add Stanford Quarterly Reflection Y2Q1
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diff --git a/content/posts/stanford-quarterly-reflection-05/drawings.pdf b/content/posts/stanford-quarterly-reflection-05/drawings.pdf
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diff --git a/content/posts/stanford-quarterly-reflection-05/index.md b/content/posts/stanford-quarterly-reflection-05/index.md
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+title = "Stanford Quarterly Reflection (Y2Q1)"
+date = 2025-01-04
+[extra]
+type = "post"
++++
+
+Last year my friends would often pointedly remind me that I was a
+freshman. So it's been a little weird this quarter no longer holding
+that title. However, as far as beginnings go, I'd say it's off to a fine
+start.
+
+<!-- more -->
+
+### Academics
+
+This quarter is what Stanford is supposed to be. I learned. A ton. I was
+enrolled in:
+
+1. MATH 21: Calculus
+2. COMPLIT 37Q: Zionism and the Novel
+3. SUSTAIN 345: Sustainable Societies Lab
+4. DESIGN 11: Visual Thinking
+5. CS 148: Introduction to Computer Graphics and Imaging
+
+The extent to which I was actually *in* MATH 21, despite my enrollment,
+is somewhat questionable. I attended very few lectures, and I think
+possibly two discussion sections. On balance, I think this was alright.
+I obviously didn't derive as much as I could have from the course (pun
+intended), but I performed adequately and had more time to devote to
+things that interested me far more. This is despite my liking the
+professor: when I did manage to show up for lecture, I felt a bit like I
+was participating in the mathematical world of yore. The class did
+manage to have a statistically significant impact on my sleep though!
+See if you can guess when the problem sets were due:
+
+
+
+Zionism and the Novel was a real treat. The [syllabus](syllabus.pdf) was
+so interesting that I felt guilty any time I had to skip a reading, and
+promised to catch up on it at a later date for my own good. I'm still
+working on that. I also ended up sharing [a lot] of [my writing] from
+the course on this site, which is a very nice plus.
+
+The Sustainable Societies Lab continues to be a blast (I participated in
+another incarnation of it [last spring]). We heard from a number of
+deeply knowledgeable speakers from a broad range of fields. I was blown
+away by Marc Tarpenning, which also made [its way] into [some posts]
+here. I also strongly disagreed with the founder of Beyond Meat, and
+will attribute any future failure to his attitude and any future success
+to pure luck. The latter half of that sentence is a joke.
+
+DESIGN 11, my [old nemesis][last spring], was possibly my favorite
+class. It was certainly the most impactful—I think I will never look at
+the world the same way after taking it. The class forced me to become
+comfortable sitting in the liminal space of making things. There are
+very few ventures that you can be sure of before embarking upon them.
+Most entail some space in between, where each step from the start takes
+you further toward your ultimate destination. Some steps are misplaced,
+mistakes that you have to recognize and adapt to instead of abandoning
+your progress and starting again from scratch. This process must feel
+like home to you if you want to make something. The class instigates
+this change in its students by forcing you to do the things you're bad
+at, over and over again. First the stakes are low: building little
+one-off thingamajigs and prototypes. And then you're thrown directly in
+the fire and made to combine those little skills you didn't even realize
+you were learning to make something real. We did that three times:
+carving and constructing an [automaton] from foam core, abusing [Figma]
+to make a functional digital [vending machine], and the final open-ended
+project that ultimately coalesced into [Roll Call]. I am grateful to
+Patrick Fenton, who made this a comfortable place to grow, and to Vivek
+for pushing me through the course when I needed an extra shove and
+making building things a total blast. Also I sort of learned to draw:
+
+
+
+CS 148 was another fun class—I took this one at Naama's behest, and
+found the [final project] in particular a good opportunity to implement
+the techniques for making that I had picked up in DESIGN 11. The class
+was scheduled at the same time as DESIGN 11, so I never actually
+attended a lecture, but I'm theoretically a fan of the professor because
+he has two Oscars for inventing the math behind CGI and was a
+[professional bodybuilder] in his youth (scroll to the bottom of that
+link). It had been a long time since I [worked with Blender], so it was
+fun to get back at it! I felt a lot more confident building things
+independently this time around, which I would attribute to my growth in
+many contributing areas and skillsets—quite satisfying.
+
+This quarter lacked a structured avenue for me to engage with political
+thought. Zionism and the Novel came close, and I certainly engage
+seriously on a myriad of political issues in discussions with my
+friends, but I still felt something of a void. All of which is to say
+that I declared a PoliSci minor on the International Relations track,
+which will hopefully keep me entertained in this respect going foreword.
+They also gave me a funky shirt when I declared, which Design didn't, so
+extra points to their department.
+
+### Personal
+
+This was the quarter of Junch and the Sleepoverers. Odin and my
+membership in both groups means that we technically won the quarter.
+Every week was marked by me getting progressively more excited until I
+actually arrived at Junch and then seven days of comedown until the next
+one arrived. Our more ambitious schedule for this upcoming quarter is
+going to be epic; I just hope Naama and Jordan can keep up. The
+Sleepoverers were my people for these past few months. If I had
+downtime, I was with Nageena, Lulu, and Daniel. What a squad we were—the
+half of our contingent that are going off to Paris this upcoming quarter
+will be dearly missed.
+
+My roommate this year is no longer random: I'm living with Vivek! Who
+would have thought that we would be living together, four years after we
+first met each other and thought the other one was super weird. Our room
+is a total blast. It really is as simple as Vivek told my dad: "we like
+the same snacks." Here's to next quarter, when my morning classes might
+finally force me to adopt his sleep schedule.
+
+I've created some clean delineations above for the sake of the post, but
+of course reality is much messier. Jack and Zach, besides rhyming, are
+pillars of my existence here at Stanford. I look forward to more GSB
+library study sessions and rapid costume creation, respectively. Adri,
+Deit, Reis, Kato, and Bradley welcome me back to the Phi Psi house like
+a returning champ every time. Sophia is a boundless source of creative
+energy for activities and I am very sorry for spreading the false rumor
+that she broke her leg playing laser tag. Vedant and Hasan show up all
+the time in such unexpected places—I look forward to the next time I'm
+summoned. Nate continues to outlift me in the gym, and Trun continues to
+do things with computers that shock and surprise me. I am routinely
+impressed by Daniel's FLiCKS.
+
+### Looking Forward (I Go Back to School Tomorrow)
+
+This was a different quarter. I enjoyed it. This next quarter, I'm going
+to build on the positive institutions that were seeded here—continuing
+my perpetual search for *better* and *more*. Academically, I'm going
+back to the basics with a lot of foundational requirements. I'm looking
+forward to it. In the meantime, I'm going to go celebrate getting this
+out on time.
+
+[a lot]: @/reading/illusion-of-return.md
+[my writing]: @/reading/waking-lions.md
+[last spring]: @/posts/stanford-quarterly-reflection-03.md
+[its way]: @/posts/marc-tarpenning-on-innovation.md
+[some posts]: @/reading/rocket.md
+[automaton]: https://youtu.be/sOnKN3TLwJ0
+[Figma]: https://www.figma.com
+[vending machine]: https://youtu.be/aMlIcQ35QbA
+[roll call]: @/projects/roll-call/index.md
+[final project]: @/projects/baymax-memory-lane/index.md
+[professional bodybuilder]: https://physbam.stanford.edu/~fedkiw/
+[worked with blender]: @/posts/i-wrote-this-two/index.md#making-a-doughnut-in-blender
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