Born in the 90's: Some Overlooked Ways Internet Changed My Life

Merry Christmas and I hope everyone is having an amazing holiday break! While majority of my friends are done school or have just finished their co-op work terms, my work term doesn't end till the end of the month. So, I'll be back at work tomorrow.

I wanted to write this blog post about how my life would have been different had I been born 10 years earlier. Like I've said in my earlier posts, I've been around with a computer since I was really young with Windows 3.1. By 1995, my family purchased an IBM Windows 95 and we also subscribed to dial up (56k!). Now that I think back, the internet did change my life in a few ways. There are obvious ways that internet changed our world such as lots of material available online, easier to re/connect with people, endless entertainment (youtube, games etc...) and etc...

I then realized that if it wasn't for the internet, my Chinese would have been no where near as good. Why? I immigrated to Canada when I was 5 and didn't know very much about the language. After a few years, I forgotten how to read and write. I was enrolled into a Chinese school in Richmond but I wasn't very interested. I left after a few years because it was very impractical. However, I still really enjoyed watching Chinese television and they were available through cable. By the time I was 11, BitTorrent was available and I was able to download new shows. With these new shows, I was more likely to join forum discussions or read Chinese sites to see what online users talk about these shows. Because I spent more time watching tv (with subtitles) and reading online Chinese forums, my Chinese actually became quite good. On top of that, I learned how to input Chinese through using NJStar with pinyin and learned how to read simplified Chinese (Hong Kong uses traditional characters).

When I was about 13 or 14, I was bored during my spring break and decided to try to learn the guitar. I always loved the song of the guitar. Luckily, guitar wasn't too hard of a instrument. I found out by just pressing some frets and strumming some strings, I could make a tune out of it. But then, I wasn't getting much better. And of course, the internet played another role. There were tutorials online and UltimateGuitar that provided lots of tabs.

I would say that without the internet, you would think I wouldn't have gone very far with Chinese or guitar. Others may argue that I could have just bought tutorial books or pay for a tutor to teach me these skills. It's not necessarily true. When I was in my pre-teen years, I didn't have any allowance money nor would I ever beg my parents for things. Internet on the other hand, was free (to me at least). Everything turned out well because those years in my life were probably the best time to learn a language or instrument. A few years later, I was in high school and was very busy with other stuff going on in my life anyways.

There are probably other overlooked ways that internet changed my life. I don't think anyone can imagine what life would be without internet now. Every morning when I'm commuting to work, I see lots of people poking at their smart phones. As great as the internet can be, I really hope that the newer generations would use it in the good ways. For example, I used to have a friend that would only care about 2 things in his life. One was to go to school where he didn't care about his education at all and was barely passing his courses. The other was to game the rest of the time he had. He was so into gaming that he wouldn't even bother to finish his homework.

8 months have flown by!

I've been meaning to blog for a very long time but due to how busy I am at school and work, I've been experiencing a burnout. I am about to finish my 8 month work term at PDFTron and so I've working lots of hours to try to wrap up on my current project. I was also taking an elective course, EOSC 116 at UBC and wrote my final exam this week. With 9 days left in my work term, I still trying to finish all the features implementation, bug fixing and lots of documentations!

Next term is going to be very interesting. I'm taking CPSC 319 (Software Engineer Project), CPSC 304 (Database) and CPSC 314 (Graphics) and an economics course. It's going to be very project heavy and I expect some rough times when project due dates are bunched up together. However, I'm quite excited to see my friends on a daily basis and getting a chance to apply the knowledge I gained in the work force to academic projects! Having spent 8 months at PDFTron, I am definitely much more confident with my technical skills. I got a chance to expose myself to lots of languages such as PHP, C++, J2EE etc... In the mean time, I am still busy searching for next summer's internship. Who knows where I'm going to end up? I just got another interview opportunity today and I'll talk more about it another day.

I can't believe I have completed the requirements of co-op now that I am able to finish my 4th work term. It wasn't very long ago that I was sitting in one of those co-op workshops learning how to apply to jobs and how to succeed in interviews. I remember looking through all those placepro job ads and I felt so inexperience when I was far below the job requirements. To show my appreciation to the co-op program, here's a guide/ advice for co-ops that are looking for a placement:

1. Work on side projects - Okay, well, I was told that a million times and also didn't really do a side project back when I was looking for a placement. Obviously time is very valuable to a student and can be difficult to find time to work on a project. If you can't find the motivation to do a project, at least be curious and go read and learn stuff on your own time. Projects are amazing to show to your potential employers. That's how you stand out in front of all the other candidates.

2. Be Curious/Have the Passion to Learn - This field is consistently changing. If you're not keeping up, you're falling behind. Go read technical blogs or perhaps some books. Hacker News is a good start.

3. Design a e-portfolio/personal website/blog - Having an online presence is important. Your resume can only hold so much information yourself and your website can be an extension to showcase how amazing you are. Did I ever tell you I got interview opportunities because recruiters found my website?

4. Soft-Skills/Communications Skills

5. Extracurricular Activities - It's good to know that you're human after all! You can potentially show your leadership and organization skills here!

6. Be Confident - Don't worry too much about how you're not good enough. Your accomplishments are not flukes! Don't let Impostor Syndrome take you down!

7. Ask Questions!