Thoughts on my Mast3r

I am here in the lab, some music, AC going waiting for some results to mess up more with my current understanding of the algorithm. I have completed 99% of my thesis. Last refinements and details are needed. I need to upload the dataset and show some cool visuals to show that I have been doing some cool stuff.

Overall this journey has been though, full of insecurities, unplanned detours, long nights and lonely afternoons of writing code and hopeless debug. I would do it all over again. This difficulties brought out only the best in me. It showed me how much I can handle and how much stress I can overcome. Fear of not being enough, impostor syndrome, living up to others and especially my expectations has been quite challenging. I don’t have a final answer, but if I learned something is that all these emotions need to be invited to the party. You can’t fake it, you can bury them, it will just waste energies in the wrong place. Like in Inside Out, they all contribute and we have to accept.
Also like in Vipassana Meditation, you should be equanimous, but my journey has been all other than equanimous. And now that I am stressing out for my thesis, I ask myself, is it really needed? I feel that if I am not stressing out, means I am leaving stuff on the table, but this shouldn’t be the case. So here I want to report the findings of these 2 years that put me to the test and showed where my limits are and how can I eventually push them further. I hope someone can emphasize with me and feel a little less out of place.

Not Being Enough

One of the biggest monster that I had to face was definitely not being enough. Most of my life I have been dangling from showing I was worth something to my parents by bringing home good marks, and do whatever I want. Most times I feel that I am only worth what I achieve, what I can program and the results I show. But this research path showed me how difficult that is in a game where nothing is predictable and your strength is seen in if you can push forward for one more time. The results are just downstream task. But then you ask yourself did I do enough. Could I have done more? The only way I can answer to this is by spending all my waking ours working, only then I can say I have done all I could. The next step is to work smart, and that is what I am still learning. I feel though at some point I will reach a point in which I will recognize if I could have done more or if I was just lazy. In the grand scheme of things, I don’t want to arrive at the end of my life and look back and say, I could have done better, why did I settle for mediocrity. I want to reach the end and have as little regrets as possible.

Others Expectations

I guess I still care much what other thinks, and that has been fading a lot since the beginning, but one of my biggest fears is to let down, or come short of the expectations that people who believe in me. Some people gave me a lot, and I want to show them I am good, I recognize their time and effort and want to give back. But if than I can only give back less than what they expect, well I feel I didn’t live up to the expectations, or either they saw something in me that I was quite not able to bring it out. It seems a toxic trait, but I feel I have grown out of this, and it is still motivation to keep going.

Time is running out

This is my all-time favourite. At some point in my 20s I realized time is running out. Yes we still might have 60+ years, but how many of this are going to be pristine. And at some point I need to be wise in the next 25 to be even wiser later. You know I feel now is the time to put the foundation of your life. You turn 18 and you think you have all your life and you can change anything, the World. Then you do some stuff you see people your age not caring at all and you are washed away with them. Some years down the line you wake up and see, what the hell I have been doing so far? I am lucky as I realized that quite soon, have parents that care, and that see potential in me that sometimes I even fail to see. We should have more people like this in our life. That’s what I strive for. So, you wake up and say cool, things do not just happen if I wish them to, but an intricate fabric of reality has to be forged in order for things to happen. Like meeting the right people, being in the right place, asking the right questions, and acting accordingly. Failing fast, failing often, saying yes to little, saying no to the rest. Focusing and doubling down on your bets. That’s not easy, it takes courage, it takes determination and a lot of willingness to be a fool and to risk it all. And after this, nothing is still certain, you have no guarantee of success or to be in the place you wish to. That is absolutely impossible to know. But you have to fucking believe and jump. But time, time is not on our side, time has been the central part of everything, yet we know so little if something at all. We fight, we plan, we wait but it’s like the flow of the river, it just goes. So unfortunately as all the others, I do not have any answer on this, but what I am trying to do is to find things and work that makes me feel I am swimming happily in this river of time without aggressively, going against the current but seeing where I will eventually land, by steering my direction accordingly to different opportunities and passions.

Doing meaningful research

That is still a point I don’t know how to address. Every time I think about a new idea, it’s out the next day from a big research lab. I am still figuring this out, but I think takes time and experience to really understand where the gaps are and how to address them. One thing I learned though: meningful research is not done alone in front of the computer, but is done talking to peers, going to reading groups, random discussion with friends/collegues over coffee. That’s where it happens, then it is indeed written in the labs and in front of the computer.

Asking the right questions

This is one of the most important and crucial things in my head for a long time. Whenever a professor asks are there questions, I am always hesitant to ask because I think someone might have a better question than me, which I can learn more than just asking my question which might be just because my lack of knowledge, but not really pushing for new point of views etc. That is where I am stuck at the moment. I feel that with more experience and dots, it will be easier to ask questions and connects things together. I often attend presentations, and eagerly wait for my supervisor questions, because they are always critical but in such a way that everyone benefits and actually, given his experience are amazing.

Execution

Just exacute. Use all your available tools, go fast and accurate. During my thesis I was going too fast that my code bloated up, but with a minimal SW engineering I could have saved. Next time before starting a project and experiment things I might spend quite some time to create the infrastructure and the rest, so that down the line, things will get easier and not harder. Hard first, easy later.