on change

I'm sitting at an airport right now and have been reflecting on the past few months.

Honestly, it's still hard to process how fast my life changed (for the better), and I wanted to write a little bit about the things I'm excited for but also talking about how it's still overwhelming.

I'm going to assume no one keeps up with my life so I'll keep this super brief:

  • 20yrs old, junior studying CS at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville

  • got an internship in NYC at Google and Melius, a VC-backed startup

  • received a full-time offer for Melius where I'll be starting in June before I graduate

I have really bad object permanence so sometimes I forget that I actually spent 20 years of my life living in Tennessee (TN) and that NYC is not my home. I might be stupid.

Exciting Times

Anyways, I want to talk about all the things I'm excited for and how I never had these opportunities before first.

Career-wise, I've already learned so much from so many cracked engineers at Melius. I've come to realize that I have to just build to become one. These are the types of opportunities that just don't usually happen in TN because no tier-1 VCs are funding startups in that area. Money attracts talent and honestly I think if you want the best growth as an engineer you need to be in SF or NYC. I've already met some people I would've never interacted with if I stayed in TN, such as successful bootstrapped founders, tier-1 VC partners, CEOs, CTOs, I could keep going; this is not a knock on the people creating businesses anywhere else, but these big city people are just different.

Here, I genuinely believe that I'll be a millionaire by 25, but very hopeful that it'll be sooner lol, it was definitely a fantasy before.

Being in the city, I'm super excited for all the restaurants and shops I'm still able to find, it's like an endless supply of peak consumables. There's also too much shopping to do, every store I used to shop at online is literally only 20-30 minutes away now. After I bought some Rick Owens and a Bape sweater, I realized that this is all a fugazi. If you want my honest opinion, I think the best clothing store in the world is 'derschutze', they make such quality, embroidered pieces for such reasonable prices it makes me wonder why I'd even pay absurd prices for anything else.

Walking. I love walking, I don't like running. There's such a calming experience by walking, it feels like taking life a little slower (in a good way).

I really think that I'm growing so much as a person and as an engineer. Hopefully I don't chud out.

Hesitancy

I think my excitement outweighs the hesitancy I've been experiencing, but it's still nice to be self-aware of things that make me anxious about all of the change.

I already miss my friends and family. I honestly thought I'd be here for 3 months, which turned into 6, which then turned into me living here for the forseeable future. To be honest, I wish I had done more with them and it gives me a small feeling of FOMO when I go on Instagram now. It's okay though, I definitely wouldn't have it any other way since I basically dreamt of the position I'm in right now, and some level of sacrifice is always necessary for achieving the things you want.

NYC is so fucking expensive. I remember when I was in high school I thought 'Oh I'll just get a six figure job and I'll be okay when I graduate', HELL NO!!!!! If I wasn't in tech I'd be so fried, thankfully I'm only 20 so thinking about the future hasn't reached my frontal lobe development yet. I'm just gonna max out my Roth IRA and put some money in index funds and call it a day.

I don't really want to change due to my environment. I think it's definitely easy to change as a person when you're around new people; I think I've done a good job of staying true to myself though. Sometimes I think of other people in my life and how much they've changed (talking about for the worse), so I need to stay concious of myself and how I act.

Other stuff

I need to get a new apartment ASAP, I'm living in a box right now. I just want enough room for a PC setup, I think I'm gonna start streaming after work, probably to 2 viewers.

Also, if you're someone who has the chance to go into big tech or a startup, if the startup has potential, I'd almost always go with the startup. Don't do what I did.