Essay Ron Essays

Context This is an assignment I wrote for a course before graduation, hence it may seem a tad lengthy and dragged on at times (as one of the marking rubric is "evidence based", so I have to provide examples for every topic I bring up). However I think this write up is rather fun in sharing my experience of a "startup" course. To provide a bit of an extra context, this course is jointly offered by our school's business department and STEM departments, where a carefully selected cohort each year (we have to write application letter with resume, etc) is enrolled to form teams of 5-6 consisting of top business and STEM students to pursue a new venture. Everything in terms of the business itself is self-directed, but the teaching team is there to provide guidance and assistance when necessary, as well as teaching core materials much like a normal college course.   As a result, there won't be any "public domain" pictures on this essay. This is exa...

Context  This is my last term of college, my last 4 months in school. And I'm off to a good start. I'm taking a light but non-trivial course load (12-credit, 8 credits of tough stuffs and 4 credits of meh), and I guess it is not much of an achievement to say I'm doing alright.  The difference is in how it's starting to look and feel in terms of my mood, energy and time. Sure the courses may have barely started, but never before have I complete every pre-reading before class, finish my assignments / responsibilities in time, and continue to maintain a great deal of activities in my personal life from reading books to writing essays, from gaming to watching NBA. And friends, workout, piano, staying alive, ...  The Single Greatest Cheat of All Time  I still haven't dedicate a blog post to the book Why We Sleep  by Matthew Walkers despite mentioning it in almost every blog or social media post as of late. Its impact so great on me, I am not ready to wri...

Context Upon completing Why We Sleep: Unlocking The Power of Sleep and Dreams  by Matthew Walker, I promptly picked up a new book: Deep Work: Rules for Focused Work in a Distracted World  by Cal Newport.  Overall, the book positively impacted me in 2 ways, yet at the same time I had quite a bit of "problems" with between his logical gaps and boasting of accomplishments or anecdotal evidence to his methods. Before I continue, let's quote the book's definition of Deep Work - "Professional activities performed in a state of distraction free concentration that push your cognitive ability to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skills, and are hard to replicate"  Its definition is highly similar to that of flow (link to wikipedia) , but slightly more specific.  Let's focus on the goodies first.  How Did The Book Positively Impact Me For one , the book drilled deep in why Deep Work is extremely hard in the modern world. The ...

Before I start The original post is on my facebook. While I only imagine people who knows me to ever come for the blog, I don't want to write it in a way that assumes all readers know my detailed background and story. So while I'm 95% copy pasting the exact post, I added context and touch ups when needed. General context: I've been in college as an undergrad for 7 years going 8 for one reason or another. After a long journey, it seems to have reached a reasonably positive conclusion with existing job offers in the software industry which tends to be quite lucrative. Here goes.. Been kinda quiet for a while and did nothing for Christmas as I was in the details with job offers and resting from the interview processes. Didn't go quite as well as I'd hope to but it seems like a final decision is close to being made. I'd like to say it's a lot of hard work paying off and a lot of help from great friends, but honestly at this point it's not some...

What I think vs what I do: How it changed from when I was young to now To start this with a digression, I was always a hobby "writer" / blogger, anywhere from tracking my life experiences akin to a diary entry to an attempt at a technical summary on things I've learnt. A problem I tend to have is I half expect my far-and-few-in-between readers (often posted as facebook posts) to have quite a bit of understanding of me as a person and my past, while having multiple running themes and topics across posts. They can be awkward to dissect on any particular writing due to the lack of focus and assumption of existing context. Ultimately, I always wrote for myself , it is a way for me to express and reflect, and for self-amusement. Yet despite my clear goals with little to do with anyone else, it was refreshing and motivating to find out some friends read my writings and found it interesting, providing some feedback or discussion, privately or publicly. So it increasingly bec...