It happens faster than you think. You blink, and suddenly a year has flown by. A year ago, I was grinding through assignments, juggling projects, tutoring, and wondering if all of it would pay off. Turns out, it did.

def blink():
    wake_up_one_year_later()

forgot_to_take_a_break = True
if forgot_to_take_a_break:
    blink()

One year ago, I launched MyQC Grades, a simple tool for students at Queens College to track their grades. What started as a side project quickly grew to help over 10,000 students. That alone felt like an accomplishment—but I didn’t stop there.

Since then, I’ve participated in Hack Harvard and built an AI-powered number guessing game, backed by OpenAI, Node.js, and MySQL. I wanted to challenge myself to design something functional, efficient, and built under pressure. The backend architecture worked flawlessly.

During Summer 2024, I was selected for a Software Engineering Fellowship at Google. I spent those months pair programming, learning how to write clean, production-level code, and thinking about optimization strategies. It was intense, but that experience gave me the confidence and skills I carry today.

I also worked as a Software Engineering Tutor at CodePath and Queens College Learning Commons. Teaching algorithms and system design to over 80 students taught me that the best way to learn something is to teach it to others.

Academically, I completed challenging courses like CSCI381 - SQL Programming and CSCI363 - Artificial Intelligence. In SQL Programming, I spent weeks building queries, optimizing relational designs, and working with T-SQL. In Artificial Intelligence, I implemented search algorithms, decision models, and worked on automated Python agents.

I even launched afk.ac, a terminal-themed website that ties all these projects, blogs, and coursework together. It’s simple, minimal, and entirely mine.

> The past year in retrospect

The past year has been a whirlwind of learning, shipping, and growing. I’ve built real things, worked at Google, taught others, finished difficult coursework, and kept pushing myself to do better. I wanted to look back and write this not as a brag, but as a checkpoint.

If you’re reading this and wondering if all the sleepless nights, failed builds, broken queries, and rewrites are worth it — they are. Looking back now, I’m glad I kept going.

Let’s see where I’ll be one year from now.

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