I’m setting some learning and achievement goals for myself as 2024 begins.

Firstly, I wanted to finally get a personal website up and running. And, well, that’s what you’re looking at right now! This site is being developed through Jekyll, the static site generation platform, and hosted by GitHub Pages.

In the new year I want to expand my software skillset both in and out of the classroom. I’ll be taking the time to independently learn some new languages and frameworks this year, including

  • Angular, the popular web application framework.
  • Rust, the low-level language which is consistently and extremely popular with its developers.
  • Go, the Google-developed language often cited as being very useful for systems programming applications. I’m also a big fan of its mascot, the Go gopher, of which I have a little figurine!

Some other things I want to do?

  • Start learning a new (spoken) language. I know some Latin, but I’d like to learn a second language that I can potentially use practically one day. Since my chapter of Engineers Without Borders has a project in Q’eros, Peru, Spanish is looking likely.
  • Read more. I already read a lot, but I technically missed my goal for this year (I wanted to read 52 books, about one a week throughout 2023, but only made it to the mid 30s).

Those are most of my goals that I want to enumerate here, but I also want to reflect on 2023 as well! I feel as though I have some accomplishments I can be proud of from this year. I’m now Vice President of my chapter of Engineers Without Borders, which has made tremendous strides since shaking off the post-pandemic shackles last semester and is now working to improve water conservation in a rural community in Peru. I accomplished good things as News Editor of the campus paper, including some published articles I’m proud of. I’ve also beginned to learn how to cook from my roommates, a skill I’m hoping to develop further in the new semester.

Well, that’s about it for my first post on this new site. Things are still under construction around here, but hopefully by the time you’re reading this, things look a little bit prettier. Thank you, and I hope I see you back here soon!