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What High School Doesn't Teach Us

I still remember how life was before quarantine, being carefree and indifferent to the big problems of the world; living life through the highs of today rather than the worries of tomorrow. And many people say that quarantine made kids grow up too fast, showing them that the world isn’t a perfect place, rather a collection of imperfect ideas that when looked at from the right angle gives the illusion of tranquility. An illusion that was broken in seconds. When people say this, they usually mean it negatively, as if to say being older is being thrust into a world with problems, without the solutions. And I completely agree with this, but is it such a bad thing? As people, we naturally feel lost when there’s nothing we’re working towards, like a big promotion, a group project, or a nonprofit cause. But children haven’t developed this sense of self-awareness. Naturally, as we get older, this universal fact becomes clearer and even self-evident. I feel lucky that I got a taste for this dur...
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The Harmful Effects of Group Dynamics

Through evolution, humans have become social creatures. It's beneficial to communicate and collaborate with others to achieve things that aren’t possible alone. But as the nature of groups of people changed, so did the dynamics of these groups and the people in them. Group dynamics define a significant part of our identity and our choices because it's easier to conform to an established identity than to think differently. And this can have detrimental effects for a society in the long run. Everyone holds beliefs, but an inherent part of having an opinion is disagreeing with the opposite, which is difficult without a group to support you. Humans have evolved to antagonize “out-group” individuals. This is from a primal need to protect their scarce resources from other people who are fighting for them. As human thought and technology evolved, people naturally did the same thing with ideas rather than resources. Protecting their ideas involves fighting with the mass of people that ...

Would I Do It Again?

I was asked by a friend if I would go into STEM olympiads if I could relive my grade school experience. I was honestly surprised by this question, mainly because the person I was talking to was the most respected “math person” at our school. They clearly had olympiad success and from various team competitions I knew they genuinely loved problem-solving and math. So when they answered the question, I wondered why they would erase such a big part of their life. I see my friend’s point, olympiads don’t give you practically applicable skills. Most people don’t practice olympiad math while looking for a job, why would you need to? And from a pure utility, “the most benefit in the least amount of time,” point of view, maybe working on hobby projects is the best way to get the most bang for your buck. Working on building a robot or writing a website relates directly to what someone might want to explore in the future. But should we really be looking to think like this as high school students?...

We're Afraid to be Alone

Quite frankly, the only thing that motivates us to continue living is the idea that we are worth something. And this need to constantly validate our idea of “self” just to keep living is what keeps us from reaching our potential.  Real quick, ask yourself: “What am I worth?” Now this is an impractical and difficult question, and by the end of this post you should understand why. For now, think about the answer. This is probably the only question where you are the only person that can determine the answer in a way that's meaningful to you. Sure, you can be influenced by the way others perceive you or the way you want people to see you. But you’re the only one that has to live with and is affected by the answer. Everyone unknowingly faces this question everyday. We have to make a value judgement about what we think about ourselves, and that defines how we feel. And if this turns the wrong way, which it often does, we feel lonely without consciously knowing or admitting it. People tha...

Why You (Don’t) Perform Under Pressure

I’ve always wondered why there isn’t an abundance of NFL long snappers, you know the person that snaps to the punter. Their job is to throw a ball through their legs really far back, and then to block afterwards. I’m not saying that I could do this, my scrawny 5' 5'' build could never. But I feel like there should be more people that are good enough at this to be in the NFL.  But then you realize that these players have a very important job: they can’t mess up. If they mess up in the biggest of games and in the heat of a moment, their reputation and career will be tainted. No one remembers them for every successful snap, lots of people can do that. But the performance under pressure, the way one miss doesn’t cloud your focus for the next one, that's what gets these players hired. The best players are those that feed off the adrenaline in high pressure situations, but don’t let the stress cloud their fine-tuned skill. In high-pressure situations, people can do crazy thin...

Why I Can Never Solve Any Hard Problem

This past CodeForces global round ( Global Round 27 ) was the first rated contest in 3 months that was conveniently timed for me. Needless to say, I was excited. I breezed through A, B, and C. I encountered a little hiccup at D, but it wasn't too hard of a problem. Now I had more than 2 hours to work on any other problem and, spoiler alert, I didn’t solve anything. The first place I went wrong was underestimating the difficulty of E. Usually, I can use my intuition to guess some greedy for early problems (I literally guessed B and C in this round), but this has to stop once I reach a problem that's supposed to be hard. But the very notion that a problem is hard can actually change our perception on solving it. If I think a problem is hard, it becomes infinitely harder to motivate myself to find a solution for it. If it's beyond my skill level, what's the chance I can think of and then correctly implement it in the span of a short contest. If so few others have gotten ...