Section I: Preface
It has been a long time since my last diary. I remember a did have two reflection articles for my first and second quarters written. However, by the end of third quarter, I started to record everything through video in order to practice my oral skills. Now is about time to pick up writing skills again.
The end of 2017 is also the end of my student life in my temporarily schedule. Though there is still a small probability for me to pursue Ph.D., but I believe it shall not happen in the following three years. This is one of the major decisions I made this year. There are multiple factors lead to this consequence, including the rejection of my journal paper and an unhappy cooperation experience with a famous professor in UCSD. I still remember I had been considering about pursuing Ph.D. the whole summer quarter and bothered lots of professors and friends. It is surprising that the decision at the end turns out to so easy for me.
Section II: School Work
My master study in UCSD is going to end with four quarters. I would say I do learn a lot from here — not only have deeper and wider understanding of machine learning, but also acknowledge the basic ideas of computer vision, robotics, and randomized algorithms.
For machine learning part, I learn more about
- Reasoning and sampling approaches in both directed and undirected graph [250A, 291 Latent Variable Model]
- Deep learning libraries, such as Keras and Tensorflow [253]
- Spark [255]
- Convex optimization [291 Convex Optimization]
- Reinforcement learning [study group]
For non-machine learning part, I gain the knowledge of
- Robotics program design platform, i.e. Robot Operation System (ROS) [291 Robotics]
- Computer vision [252A-C]
- Advanced algorithms, such as suffix tree, suffix array, linear programming, Treap, and splay tree [202]
- Randomized algorithms [203]
- Implementation skills of SAT solver [291 Automatic Reasoning in AI]
At the end, I finished fourteen courses with two A-, seven A, and five A+, which results in GPA 3.957.
Section III: Internship and Part-time
Frankly speaking, I was really very lucky in finding internship and full-time job. In the beginning, my dream is to work in a tech company with medium or above size. On top of that, that job had better be related to what I am good at, which is machine learning (ML). Yelp Advertisement (AD) Target Team is exactly the one I am looking for, and I am lucky to work with a group of excellent teammates.
However, sometimes I feel that smoothness in finding job also stops me from grasping other opportunities. LinkedIn, Facebook, and PureStorage are three other companies that I would like to try to work with. With Jeff’s referral, I am fortunate to talk to multiple engineers in PureStorage, and I really love its culture and people. Hopefully, I will have another chance to work there for a while.
With internship and part-time job, I have changed my mind about industry greatly. Before I started working in Yelp, I was told that it is rare for a newbie to work on ML-core tasks. Nevertheless, I was very satisfied about my assigned works during the internship:
- Be familiar with AD framework in Yelp
- Analyze feature candidates
- Extract features from raw data
- Deploy my model with new features to production.
It is just so amazing that my model could be used by all Yelp clients for a period of time.
It is with the influence I had in Yelp, I gradually abandon my thought of pursing Ph.D. In other words, being an intern in Yelp actually determined my path to the future.
Section IV: School to Industry
Honestly speaking, I was getting tired of school life during my last quarter. Probably, it was because I had both part-time job and school projects at the same time. Sometimes, I would rather work overnight on one Yelp ticket than prettifying a homework with tight deadline. This might be another meaningful symbol prevents me from pursing Ph.D.
Leaving school also means that there is no longer any add-on pressure for me to pursue advanced knowledge. That is too say, I must build up a relatively strict schedule or cultivate a habit to force me to broaden my knowledge. Otherwise, I will gradually fall behind others without consciousness.
Section V: Research
In terms of research projects, I got one acceptation for my active learning related paper, which was submitted to PAKDD, and one rejection for my multitask learning journal paper, which was submitted to TKDE.
Joining in the PAKDD conference in person is one of the greatest experience I have this year. I not only had a wonderful “vacation” there, but also develop many friendships with students all around the world. From what I can remember, I make friends from Australia, Belgium, China, Korea, and Japan. Until now, the bouquet at the last night is still so vivid in my mind: we chatted about different country cultures and weather, our habits and hobbies, and our current life and dreams to the future. I really hope we can still meet each other in a near future.
For my journal submission, though there are two good and one fair comments for it, it is still considered not qualified for acceptance. I believe there is still a large chance for it to get accepted once I rewrite the paper in a better way.
Section VI: Sports
This year I mainly focus on two objectives: Kung-fu and volleyball. I am glad that I seem to have improvement in both of them.
Kung-fu is really a very interesting sport for me. It not only requires “participation” in a three-hour class, but also your perseverance in practice at home. Until now, I have learned three sets of movements:
- 連環拳
- 潭腿
- 太祖長拳
Apart from that, I also learned partial of 太極拳 and 小八極. I believe I will keep learning and practicing all those martial arts in the future.
Volleyball is another sport I love so much. Though I joined the medium level of volleyball class when I was a undergrad in Taiwan, I didn’t realize the true fun in it: you need to really trust and cooperate with your other teammates. Though this sport can merely be represents with “serve”, “receive”, “set”, and “spike”, the situation is much more dynamic and complex when one is playing on the court. Hope I can still have the chance to play volleyball at a regular basis in the future.
Section VII: Investment
Investment is another key element I learned this year. I started to invest my money in stock market around the end of August, since I noticed that stock share is going to account for a huge portion in my income. Thus, sooner or later, I need to have better understanding of the stock market in US. Why don’t I start it now?
My investment in the last four months is surprisingly a success, which results in around 5% earnings. However, it seems that I can earn a lot more if I decided to invest in cryptocurrency.
From my point of view, cryptocurrency should never reach this price (~16k as highest price) if everyone is rational. I have written another article entails all my thoughts about cryptocurrency. If you are also interested in that article, please feel free to refer to it or just ask me for its link.
For now, I will keep a closed eye on the price of cryptocurrency as well as read more information about prospective stocks in 2018.
Section VIII: English Practice
To improve my English ability, I have tried multiple approaches this year, including keeping written diary or oral diary, listening to English news and songs, and co-work with foreigners in school projects. It turns out that my English is getting better and better, though there is still room for improvement.
Section XI: Sickness: Pneumonia
At the end of the fourth quarter, to be more precisely, the very last week of fourth quarter, I was infected with unknown Pneumonia. In the first week, I coughed and felt hard in breathing, just like the classical symptom of asthma. However, in the following weekends, I started having pains in my left lung. After that, I was active in finding help in UCSD health center. However, even with four-week treatment with antibiotics and cough medicines, my situation did not get any improvement.
Here is a quick summary of the examinations I have done in order to diagnose the cause of my disease:
- Three pharmacy visits and two urgent-care visits
- Four X-ray chest scans
- One CT chest scan
- Four blood tests
With all the above examinations, doctors have ruled out the possibility of infestation from strep, coccidial mycoses, Mycoplasma, and TB. Unfortunately, they still failed to identify the source of my disease. It turns out that I have consumed three kinds of antibiotics and payed 250+ dollars. Hope I can wake up from this nightmare as soon as possible.
Section X: Reflection of 2017 and Expectation of 2018
I believe I have done a great job in both my academics and internships. Though it is a pity that my journal paper didn’t get accepted for my first submission, the acceptance of my regular paper is still a positive feedback to my research ability. Hope I can keep my enthusiasm in machine learning research for long.
For my English ability, I would say it is much better now in both writing and speaking; however, there is always room for improvement. I must keep on all my good habits in 2018. On top of that, it is highly recommended from my team manager in Yelp that I should reach to more TV shows or talks to further improve my listening skills.
For friendships, I barely keep connection to my old friends through infrequent Facebook messages this year. However, on the contrary, I am not brave enough to walk out of the comfort zone to make new friends, especially with foreigners. This kind of coward behavior greatly violates my long-term goal: to be native to this country. This self-requirement does not mean that I need to enlarge the distance with Taiwanese; oppositely, I shall get a better balance in different living styles. Why cannot I sometimes join the reunion events with old friends and sometimes have a drink with other foreigners?
Another main expectation to me in 2018 is to gather a better balance in entertainment and work. Although it seems to be an expectation to me for a long time, I still make a terrible balance between these two. For example, sometimes I work overnight just because I want to get something done before standup meeting tomorrow; however, sometimes, especially when I was sick in the last four week, I literally do nothing meaningful but watching movies and playing games. I should have known this fact for a long time: entertainment and work are two opposite sides of life and cannot be separated. If I cannot admit this fact from my deep heart, it can be anticipated that I will at the end dampen all my enthusiasm in working or ruin my health.
Section XI: Postface
At the end, I want to thank all my friends and families. Without your accompany, my life would not be so colorful. Though the distance between us might increase when we live in different countries or work in different companies, I will still remember you and keep looking forward to the day we meet again.