a letter to my first year-self - by mathu - chai latte

So, I actually finished a first draft of this post, at the beginning of my second year of university. But it didn't feel right to post it yet. Now I'm in my final year of university, and starting to meet a ton of first-year students on campus asking "what advice would you give your younger self?" it seemed timely to revisit this post again - which is perfect because I have many more things to add. Note, that the things I'm writing here aren't necessarily universal truths, but moreso anecdotes from my personal experiences or things I've learned from friends close to me. school doesn’t matter as much as you think it matters. I think it's fair to say that everyone goes through a universally humbling experience in the first year of university. It was rough, and I still think my first term of engineering at UWaterloo was one of the hardest school terms I ever had to go through. I failed a physics midterm and barely passed my calculus midterm. I remember sitting in my Solidworks class, seein

So, I actually finished a first draft of this post, at the beginning of my second year of university. But it didn't feel right to post it yet. Now I'm in my final year of university, and starting to meet a ton of first-year students on campus asking "what advice would you give your younger self?" it seemed timely to revisit this post again - which is perfect because I have many more things to add. Note, that the things I'm writing here aren't necessarily universal truths, but moreso anecdotes from my personal experiences or things I've learned from friends close to me. school doesn’t matter as