(early september, 2025)

i move in and did math orientation (was a bunch of bs but worth going to, i was just trolling ☠️ + met one of my closest friends there). classes start and it was hella light at first. i had so much time to network and make projects.

v1 life is really chill, i thought that i got unlucky when i didn't get mkv, uwp, or cmh, but v1 is definitely optimal for cs. its very close to pac & cif and i found that 90% of my cs friends also got assigned here.

when quizzes came around, workload started picking up a little. but it's still better compared to eng. although the assignments & studying defo started taking more time ( i didn't take any of the 14's, and for most of my homies who did dropped within a week or two). side project wise, i worked alot on phuture and started making some fun reels (nothing better to do in waterloo), i also built trivialguessr in under a week + went to hack the north for the first time.

side note: friends in eng (especially ce) are telling me that they are like 2 weeks in but 3 weeks behind already 😂.

i definitely missed out on waterloo tech week, i was too into my projects that i didn't consider going to events, but looking back i regret it.

go to these events, don't miss out like me.

studying in dc/dp every day has been a weird highlight, something that sounds so mundane creates hella memories. everyone being in the dc basement drinking ice capps + being 'locked in' tryna find each other after the quiz scores get released is actually hilarious ☠️.

i got friends flying to sf soon and know people who have interest from yc. 3 weeks in, the uw ecosystem is already blossoming. friends are important—surround yourself with people who challenge you to dream bigger.

uw cs brings cracked people that you can't meet at your high school together. im enjoying my experience so far.