Now Page – April 2020
An old now page. Check out my latest.
What I’m up to right now
It’s the day before Spring Quarter 2020 begins. With COVID-19 showing no signs of slowing down, day-to-day life has changed dramatically over the last few months. Here’s a look at what my life is like right now:
Looking Back (3 Months)
1. Project Completed!
In my last update, I mentioned I was working on a project with my best friend Daniel. As of today, that project is done!
It’s an admin dashboard for Cortex Companion, an app Daniel is working on to democratize the the college consulting services his company has been offering for years.
Here’s a sample of the website: the statistics page. It tracks user signups, subscription usage, and lesson engagement.

It’s extremely satisfying because I started from scratch, learning everything along the way, both on my own and through CS142.
Biggest lesson learned? In CS, it’s an extremely useful skill to know how to learn quickly because I had to learn so much in so little time. For me, the most effective method is practical learning over theoretical learning – essentially, learn concepts by trying them out, not by staring at documentation for hours on end, trying to make it all good in your head before typing the first character. (Have I done this tens, if not hundreds, of times over the course of this project?…. nahhhh)
2. Exercise
I wanted to continue swimming, but As COVID-19 began to trend upwards, that option went away. After 6 months of PT, I hoped it was a good chance to get back into running…
And I’ve been running two to three times a week over the last month! I’ve been taking it slow to ensure an injury-free ramp-up period, but despite that I’m happier than ever these days. O how I missed pounding out my rhythm on the pavement outdoors =D
Looking Ahead
School
Quarter starts tomorrow! So far, I’m taking:
- CS231N – Convolutional Neural Networks for Visual Recognition
Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are a class of neural networks that are especially useful for image data. For example, CNNs are widely used to identify objects in video. As a part of the class, I’ll be building a CNN-related project. Stay tuned for that! - CS448P – Hacking the Pandemic
This is a pop-up class specifically offered because of COVID-19 that I’m taking with my friend Andrew. I figured that this is (hopefully) a once-in-a-lifetime crisis, and therefore, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build something meaningful that could help society adjust to a new kind of living. Stay tuned for this project as well!