Section I: Summary
It has been four days since my graduation, but I just couldn’t find time to manage pictures I took or write down any word about my thoughts until now. Despite the fact that I am still not fully recovered from the tiredness accumulated during nine-day road trip and would like to fall asleep right away, I think it is a necessity to put my current feelings and thoughts in words before I lost them.
Section II: Appreciation
I really appreciate my families, including my younger brother, my parents, and even my grandma, who took a long way from Taiwan to join road trip and graduation ceremony with me. It is their very first time to take long-distance flight and spend more than 13 hours to US. I know they all sacrifice a lot to fulfill this trip, and I really appreciate to all their commitments.
I also want to thank to another family who our families have acquainted since I was a child. Honest speaking, I was not sure whether they were serious about this trip or not when I first mentioned my graduation commencement four months ago. However, they did manage to join nine-day trip with us and we altogether created so many priceless memories. I was surprised but, at the same time, very grateful that they took my graduation so seriously.. I will never forget these precious memories. I am very looking forward to our next journey 🙂
My gratitude to all my classmates is huge. Thank you all for accompany me through 4+ quarters, including when I was infested by Pneumonia and couldn’t head for any other places after my last fall quarter. Though I might not have the opportunity to co-work with each of you in homework or projects, we definitely have worked together for interviews, coding problem solving, and most important of all, had some wonderful time chilling together, no matter it was playing volleyballs, or just singing for 7 hours in a row. I feel very grateful to have your acquaintance. Let’s keep in touch and meet again somewhere sometime in the future~
SECTION III: Time Flies
It is actually quite untrue for me to think of the fact that I have been to US for two years. I can still clearly remember some memory fragments after my arrival to UCSD: how awkward I was when I ordered my first burger in restaurant, how comfortable and chill I felt when I was wandering on the street for hours without any schedule in mind, how struggling it was to prepare for pitch/ tech phone interviews, and how satisfied I was when I was working on inspiring homework/ projects/ researches. But now, they all come to an end.. I have graduated from UCSD, and I probably will not become a student again in the rest of my life. There is no more assigned homework, no more test or exam, and no more flexible schedule for working hours. Everything seems to be so different from now on…
Everything changes.. and that is a part of our life, isn’t it? I might not be young as a student, but I am still young as an engineer, a researcher, and a dream-chaser. Though I walked astray from Ph.D., I still deeply believe I am on the way to fulfill my dream. I have said this to many of my friends: my dream in my life is as easy as inventing another light bulb: exploring impossibilities, extending the knowledge frontier for humans, and making our daily life better. How hard could it be, right?
SECTION IV: Indicators In Previous Years
I remember I regarded “choice” and “balance” as my indicator for 2016 and took “prioritization” as one suggested indicator from Prof. Shou de for 2017. Next, I am thinking of a new indicator, called “pace”. Everyone has its own pace, no matter it is fast or slow, smooth or rough, tiring or inspiring. we are all on the way to our destined goal. We might lost something on the trail, such as youth, some friends without being contacted, elders that passed away, but we are also gaining much more, including new friendships, relationships, knowledge, vision, wisdom, and a lot more. I am only wishing myself to be open-minded and keep each of my stride swiftly but steadily before I reached to the end of my life.
SECTION V: To Future
At the end of this article, I want to write down something that is quite inspiring to me nowadays. I am not sure whether I read some similar statements somewhere or not, it just suddenly came to my mind so clearly: We all live once, just follow your dream and live it out, in your own pace!