Life updates and recent thoughts

I graduated with my masters in psychology two weekends ago.

My black cap and gown are still sitting in a rumpled pile on the chair in the corner of my room. The gown is probably still sweaty from when I stood out in the sun with the other graduates for almost an hour as we waited to enter the chapel for the ceremony. The person in line behind me was incredibly tall—nearly seven feet, I’m guessing. I found out that he plays basketball in Poland, where he finished his masters online. I tried to limit my tall jokes (I think I only made two or three). We were talking about the Knicks playoff run as we climbed the short steps into the chapel.

Later, I told someone in my program about him. “Why are you making friends with people you are never going to see again,” they said laughing. “Isn’t that the point?” I replied. I think they were joking, but I wasn’t.

Graduation gift from my girlfriend!

I’m ready to be done. Finishing my thesis this last semester was one of the most challenging academic things I have ever accomplished. I am drained.

Last fall, I applied to PhD programs, but didn’t get into any. My professors all said that it was a hard application cycle because of the funding cuts (thank you Trump), which is a somewhat comforting thought, even if disappointing. Still, there was a small part of me that was relieved when I started hearing back from programs in the midst of writing my thesis. I welcome a break from school.

For at least the next year, I’ll be working as a research coordinator with an organization at my grad school. I’m excited to finally have weekends free from homework, and to start making full-time money. The position begins July first, and while I will be working on finishing a manuscript with my graduate advisor, I will still have a lot of free time between now and starting work. I’ve been thinking a lot about how to best use that time, as well as my free time in general going forward without the structure of school.

I promise I won’t turn this into another essay on AI, but I often think about that one guy from Philosophy Club who was distressed at the possibility of AI taking over and successfully creating a perfect utopia where no one needs to work—truly a best case scenario. “What would we even do?” he said, as if there was nothing else to do.

Anyways, here are some of the things I hope to accomplish during the next month before starting my full-time job. Perhaps posting this will help me stick to my goals.

1. Reading everyday

Growing up, I used to read all the time. I can remember finishing books in an afternoon. Now it is rare that I finish a book at all. As a grad student, my excuse was that I was constantly reading dense research articles and textbook chapters so that when I got home I had so little motivation or energy to read for fun. Now I have the time. I’m currently reading East of Eden by John Steinbeck. A random pick, but I’m enjoying it so far.

2. Practicing R (without help from chatGPT)

I think that learning R in my last semester was one of the most important skills that I will take away from my grad program, especially if I end up working in industry. Although I am fully capable of organizing data, running statistical tests, and creating graphs in R, I do most of this alongside chatGPT. I’ve found that I need it to do even the simplest things—which on one hand is fine because I can always use chatGPT, but I also have to believe it would be more efficient for me to just know how to do those things on my own. My goal is to redo some of the assignments from my class that I “completed” but could have spent more time actually learning.

3. Learning more recipes

I’ve always liked cooking, but it’s been hard trying new things while sharing a kitchen with roommates. Right now I have a couple of simple meals that I rotate, but most of them are some kind of protein over rice—I desperately need to expand my abilities. After I move into my new place, my goal is to cook one new thing each week.

4. Reaching out to professors

Right now, I am planning to reapply to PhD programs next fall. While I believe that I was qualified last year, I think I hurt my chances by waiting until the last minute to reach out to professors to show interest and check if they were actually taking a student—websites aren’t usually up to date. I also feel that I was too picky about location last year, which is funny considering I’ve been living in a midsized southern city for the past two years and loving it. Most places are what you make of them. My goal for the end of June is to have a list of 20-30 professors that I would consider reaching out to.

5. Keep posting on Substack!

In a little over a year, I’ve made twelve posts and surpassed my own expectations for myself. I didn’t set out to cover any topics in particular, but so far they seem to focus on books I’ve read, my personal experiences, psychology, philosophy, and technology. I really enjoy writing these and it’s been helpful to have the imagined pressure that people are waiting to see a post from Cuban or Reuben in their inbox. Almost all of my subscribers are from people I’ve talked about this to in-person, or from shamelessly sending them a post with the hope that they’d subscribe. Thank you to everyone who reads these!

My goal is to stop overediting. I’ve already gotten better than when I first started. I remember one post that was basically done but I kept sitting on it, making small edits, for over a week. During that time, I barely made any changes and was really just stalling before sending it out. I still probably edit more than I need to, but I think my efforts are more focused and I am better at knowing when I’m editing to improve the piece rather than because I’m nervous to post. Still, these posts don’t have to be perfect—and they won’t be however much I try (I can barely read my first posts on here without cringing, hopefully a sign of improvement).

I have two pieces that I am currently working on. One will be on my experience with YouTube’s alt-right pipeline. I’ve started several drafts on this topic over the past year, but haven’t felt like finishing them yet. The other piece is on two books I recently read by Benjamín Labatut: When We Cease to Understand the World and The Maniac. Both of these books are fictionalized histories of scientists from the 20th century. They were so good and I can’t get his books out of my head. Hopefully I’ll get at least one of those posted during June. Although, it is likely I’ll end up posting something completely different.

---

I usually prefer a Reuben, but here’s a picture of a delicious Cuban sandwich I recently ate in Charleston, SC.