Life is like a puzzle. You don’t know what the big picture is, but every day you solve one more piece. Only at the end will you understand.

It has been a goal of mine for quite sometime now to create my own website and to blog about my various interests.

The Past

I first started an investment blog in 2012 where I talked about the stock market, companies, and also educative topics such as share structures, bonds, investment strategies and tax efficient investing with various registered accounts. It was an interesting learning experience, as it allowed me to deconstruct complex notions and structures into simple terms the layman could understand. The second thing that I developed was the ability to take a position and defend it. The wonderful advantage of the stock markets is that at the time of your opinion, there is no clear cut right answer; however over the next few months the hypothesis is put to the test and a conclusion can be drawn. It allowed me to look back and see if my positions were correct or erroneous, and try to find out which assumptions or interpretations led to the faulty conclusion. My posts on that blog will diminish over time, as I refocus my writing to this site, my personal web page, and establish my online presence.

The Present

I am currently finishing up my degree in Nanotechnology Engineering, Economics Minor at the University of Waterloo. This term I am taking very interesting courses. For my technical electives, I am taking SYDE556 (Simulating Neurobiological Systems) in which I will be programming neurons, and combining a system of neurons together to form a neural networks, and finishing the course with a project. Speaking of projects, my second technical elective is NE459(Nanotechnology Engineering Project). I will be working with Professor J Yeow working on capacitive micro-machined ultrasound transducers (CMUT). It’s an interesting project for me as I had developed COMSOL simulations for the CMUT in the MEMS course I took at the Technical University of Denmark last year. The ability to actually get hands on experience with this technology and hopefully create a working device will be an interesting challenge that I look forward to. On the elective side, I am taking three ECON courses in order to complete my requirements for my economics minor. They are ECON 301, ECON 361 and ECON 220.

The Future

I’m not sure what the future has in store for me. Hopefully it will be like the puzzle where the further along I go the picture will get clearer. I will be graduating in April, and still have no idea where I will be or what I will be doing at the end of this year. I’m hoping for admission into a PhD at one of the top universities for Electrical Engineering. I have completed my applications in December to 4 of the top 5 universities (in my opinion). As my interests lay in the bio-medical field, I ensured that the university had access to or collaborated with a hospital, as well as professors that where researching in my areas of interest. Second criteria was the emphasis on innovation at that university. The ability to participate and get involved with the start-up community here at Waterloo through Velocity has been spectacular. The knowledge retained through practicing what you learnt, as well as self learning is important for me. While some learn well in the classroom setting, I have discovered that although I develop much faster by using my hands and applying  my knowledge.

Goals of 2014

By announcing my goals of 2014 publicly, I hope to be able to keep true to them. It will serve as a constant reminder to myself about my goals and keep me in line and focused towards achieving them.

  • Graduate!
  • Determine where I will be in September 2014. Hopefully I will be starting my Masters/PhD, or working in company where I truly enjoy my work.
  • Reconnect with my high school friends. It is time to start networking. As most of us have graduated or will be approaching graduation, it will be nice to get back in touch with my friends and see what their plans, goals and career aspirations are for the next 5 to 10 years.
  • Continue developing and improving my website. Spend a minimum of 2 hours improving the site or writing tutorials per month, with a minimum of one blog post every 2 months.
  • Complete 2 puzzles of 1000 pieces or more
  • Read 5 new books before the end of the year
  • Increase website traffic to 5 recurring and 1-2 new users per month

With this I’d like to end by wishing everyone a Happy New Year, and a picture of the current puzzle I’m working on. I got started over the break, and hope to complete it soon. Can you guess what it is?