It's been a year since the quarantine. It was about this time last year when the campus operation was suspended. We stayed at home and started our Zoom University. During this time, some of my friends went back to China; some declared graduation, others applied to graduate schools. It was hard to imagine that our meeting last year is the last time I talk to them, and now we are on our way to different paths.

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I used to complain about Seattle's weather in winter. Dark, humid, rains a lot. But this winter is a little bit different. In this quarter, I started to work as a Teaching Assistant for the Allen School. It was my first-time teaching, so I was a little bit nervous in the beginning. With the kindly help from the instructors and colleagues, I soon learned how to teach and enjoyed the process of teaching. Being a TA has extended my horizon about the instructions at the university. It was my first time seeing the instructor's version of Gradescope and Canvas. During the staff meeting, I learned how instructors prepare lectures and plan for the week. During office hours, I have encountered many students. Some work hard to understand the concept, some just want to get the homework done, and some continued to challenge themselves to reach a perfect score. How to answer students' questions and inspire learning is also a necessary skill. The more I learned about teaching, the more I feel appreciative of the instructors and TA who helped me in the past.

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Besides being a part-time TA, I also maintained my status as a full-time student. It is a little bit troublesome to manage the time, but it is rewarding when I make it through the quarter. The most useful interesting class is CSE473: artificial intelligence. The course reveals the mysterious veil of AI by introducing how they solve problems. It is interesting to observe AI's behaviors and debug our programs. I still remember that our AI will look for death if it found out that the cost of living is too high or there is no way to solve it. Our instructor told us that behavior is entirely normal. Another exciting class is Amath 482: data analysis. It is the most useful Amath class I have ever taken. Unlike algorithm-driven AI, this class solves the problem using data-driven methods. It is a challenging course in terms of understanding the math behind the algorithms. Still, it shows that math can be a helpful tool in data analysis. The most challenging course this quarter is CSE452: distributed systems. The software may fail due to the network's uncertainty, and we have to take all kinds of scenarios when we write the code for our servers. It is not hard to write the working code, but it takes a long time to make it behave as we expected.

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This quarter, I also interviewed at Amazon and 98Point6. The Amazon interview was fun. There was an online assessment about debugging, problem-solving, and work simulation. However, I failed to solve the coding challenge using dynamic programming. The test cases are also hidden, which makes it harder to debug the program. Eventually, I missed the chance to work at Amazon. Later in the quarter, I was interviewed by 98Point6 in one-to-one meetings. I gave them my resume during the winter career fair. Just like other companies, I was not expecting anything after the fair. However, I received the invitation to interviews after the fair. The coding challenge is about string manipulation, and I successfully navigate through the problems. When I am writing this, I have received an offer from them, and I am excited to be a part of the team.

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Doing schoolwork is the mainstream of the quarter. I distributed work evenly during the week and tried to balance school and work. I have never felt so fulfilled like this quarter, but sometimes I just want to stop the cycle each week and take a breath. This quarter, I have overcome my shyness to speak in front of the public and gained an intern offer this summer. With my plan laid out for delayed graduation, I hope to get a full-time offer someday to eventually realize my values.