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I haven’t really thought about the use of this blog ever since I programmed it. It was more of an excuse to learn how to use Jekyll to be honest. But now, it seems to be a good idea to have a semi-private place on the web where I can put my thoughts in and maybe revisit after some time later.

I’ve spent months and months reading some brilliant essays by others on Hacker News, and it’s about time I try it out myself. I’d like to get better in my writing & storytelling skills (because who doesn’t appreciate a good story?) and the only way to do so is to just write more. Let’s begin.

MHacks IV was probably the best hackathon I’ve been to so far. The events and camaraderie made it feel more like a weekend vacation instead of what I thought was a serious hackathon, and I’ve met a lot of friendly and inspirational people there. For instance, it turns out that one of the New Yorkers who attended MHacks IV with me is Dani Grant—the person behind HACKERS OF NY. What made this such a crazy coincidence was that when I made stuyscioly.github.io, I had no idea how to code with HTML, CSS, and JS so I saved Hackers of NY’s HTML code and added my own twist to create Stuyvesant Science Olympiad’s page. Never would I have thought that I’d meet the person who made the website I was ripping off of. Anyways, I told her the entire story behind Stuyvesant Science Olympiad’s website and thanked her for Hackers of NY, because if it weren’t for that website, I would not have learned how to code in HTML. She laughed, saying “that just made my day.”

It rains often here.

What made my weekend at University of Michigan so amazing probably wasn’t the hackathon, but the campus itself. Thanks to my good friend Patrick, we did more than what I imagined that I could do during my time there. We played pool with other UMichigan students, played tennis after 2 AM, ate at the brand-new South Quad dining hall, saw a freaking pair of freaking deer casually walking around on the campus at nighttime. He showed me around the lush-green 3,245-acre campus as we rode in the free buses, pointing at all the buildings and their uses. “You can study anything here,” he said. What was most interesting was that I rarely saw a single adult who was older than a college senior on campus. The people who worked in the dining halls were all students—even the bus drivers there were college students as well.

As we toured the campus, I couldn’t help but feel pangs of jealousy for Patrick in my amazement. NYU Engineering just pales in comparison to UMich. There is no actual campus in my college. The students here aren’t as welcoming and open as the students in UMich. I don’t have any evidence, but I think that it is safe to say that the education in NYU Engineering does not compare to the teaching in UMich (they’re teaching us how to use Microsoft Word here). And without a doubt, the food does not even come close to the buffet-style dining in South Quad. The only thing that gave me a little solace was that my tuition is cheaper, but I probably would not have minded paying more for what UMich offered.

In the end, these are the cards I’m dealt and I can’t fold. Although my college is lacking, I fortunately am able to self-teach myself the tools I need in order to work towards my dreams, as I always have. Even though there is no makerspace or prototyping lab here to allow me to build anything I want, it’s not like a lack of resources stopped me before. That wooden bike I built was made in one night with only a handsaw, a drill, and a dismissal of common sense on a small coffee table. It’s not going to be easy at all, but I’ll try my best. Hopefully after many years I can look back at this and be able to say that I have stuck to my words.

Be relentless in the pursuit of a life worth the living.

~ Brian Chuk