Born to Run

I started running in 8th grade, essentially out of a bargain with my parents: I could finally stop piano lessons if I picked up some other activity. It’s lucky I read Christopher McDougall’s Born to Run; I was actually excited to pick up running (vs. the total apathy I presented toward musical pursuits). My first run, I ran 0.6 miles around the block, came home, and had what was essentially a Frappuccino (thanks, Mom). My dad saw the calorie surplus and made me do another lap (great, I’m only 300 calories in the black).

I pretty quickly realized that I actually wasn’t bad at this running thing. That same school year, I ran a mile [1] in 6:28; this is actually not fast at all in the context of 3A track meets in middle school but it was fast enough that I was impressed with myself; that feeling of accomplishment is what gave me the motivation to keep going. Seeing the times go down was cool, but it’s only because of running that I could climb Kilimanjaro or doing a half-Ironman without much training.

After high school and without the structure of a cross-country program, I spent less and less time running. I still considered myself a runner, and I had friends who ran, but I wasn’t running as often, and I wasn’t getting faster. Between studying and social activities, running fell down my list of priorities. Working at BCG only made my time more scarce; when I did run I wasn’t doing double-digit-mile runs “for fun”. At some point, I shed the dogma in my head around lifting weights and began splitting my workout time more evenly between cardio and strength training.

👟

My main concern with moving to the Bay Area was always meeting people. I was socially established in Houston; how would I make friends in a new city on the opposite side of the country? Friends in the area recommended run clubs; after a few hours of scoping out run clubs online I found one I wanted to join. I left my home Saturday morning at ~6:30am, drove for an hour, and got to the Marina District in SF. I found probably ~100 folks there, all welcoming. Someone who moved from Houston around the same time I did. A co-founder of an electric vehicle startup. An Australian with whom I shared 75% of my title with (Senior, Technical, Manager). Everyone got coffee afterwards; post-coffee pickleball was regularly scheduled programming.

I think I’m a runner again.

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[1] Technically, 1600 meters and not a mile, but what’s 30 feet at that point?

Not-so-funemployment: NO NO NO YES

People will talk about how it’s a soft job market right now. Here’s a story about what that actually looks like. 

My first out-on-third came from interviewing with (essentially) a renewables-focused consultancy - let’s call it company A. I had first heard about it from another person who had left BCG Houston to head up a region’s operations for the company; when I applied I learned that the hiring manager (and my future boss-to-be) was a former colleague of mine from BCG with whom I had worked together on a project for ~3 months or so (my second ever). All of this was to say, I thought this was going to be an easy win. I had established an strong rapport with him during our time working together, I was overqualified for the role, and I knew the industry much better than other candidates would have (at least, this was the line of thinking in my head). I went through three rounds of interviews, and I waited to hear back.

In the meantime, I had also reached out to another BCG alum who worked in the corporate strategy department of Company B, a very large fintech firm. I ended up getting in the pipeline for a Senior Associate role on the strategy team, and went through that process (a quick first call, a take-home assessment followed by a debrief as a Round Two) quickly. Things are going well with company B and I haven’t heard back from Company A, so I text my friend (on July 31) and learn that Company A wasn’t going to give me an offer, as they thought I was too senior for the role and that I’d get bored and quit after a few months (to be honest, they were probably right).

The next morning, I did my final round with Company B and emailed the recruiter to say that I thought things went well; I get some very promising news in response: “You are not wrong! It went VERY well. I am working to confirm somethings, but will likely be working on an offer for you my friend!” On August 7, I learn that Company B (1) isn’t giving me an offer, as they need to interview more folks to comply with internal hiring guidelines, and (2) that they want to consider me for a Manager-level position, not a Senior Associate-level position. This is mixed news, but I feel okay about it - ultimately, they wouldn’t be considering me for a hiring level role unless I had interviewed well, so maybe things will pan out.

A few weeks pass by, and an application I had submitted for Company C (note: not based in the Bay Area) lets me know that they want to interview me. I pass two rounds of interviews, and get an 86/100 on the SQL take-home. I don’t hear back for about a week or so (before this, I moved through each round after ~24 hours) and am then told that I didn’t get the job.

Some time goes by and the recruiter from Company B doesn’t respond to reach outs on August 16 or August 20. At this point, I think I’m basically back to square one, and without any major leads in the pipeline. A recruiter form Company D reaches out to me on LinkedIn, and although I’m not too interested in the role, I begin to go through the process. During this time, I’m based in Houston and don’t want to pay to fly out to the Bay Area, so when the topic of the final round comes up the recruiter tells me that I’m going to do a remote interview which “is part of the on-site panel, which is the final round” and that she’ll “connect with [me] after the call regarding next steps!” I do the interview, which I thought went well, and hop on a call after with the recruiter. I tell her that the weather’s hot in Houston, and I’m then told that I won’t be moving forward in the process. I assign a nonzero probability to missing out on the interview on account of not being in the Bay Area, and take note.

Another recruiter reaches out to me on LinkedIn from Company E; I go through the process and have the on-site interview on August 27. This time I’m willing to pay for my flight, and the interviews go (mostly) super well. I’m told over the phone that although the folks I chatted with in the office loved chatting with me, I ultimately didn’t get the role due to some profanity use during the interview. On one hand, this is incredibly reasonable. On the other, I only started after folks at lunch slung a few words around, and I called out mid-interview that the language I was using wasn’t client-friendly and that I could turn on the filter if that’s what folks wanted. In the end, though, I didn’t get an offer.

This part of the story ends with a reach out from someone at Athelas, and long story short, that turned into the job that I ended up taking.

I’m not writing this to say “woe is me” or to complain about the recruiting process - ultimately, things worked out. The point of this is to emphasize what a “soft job market” actually looks like - it’s rejection after rejection and ghosting after ghosting from the vast majority of companies, interspersed with periods of hope followed by a more crushing defeat. In total, I sent out 110 applications - but only one of them really mattered. It’s almost impossible to truly convey what that feels like - I was actively searching for a hair over 3 months, but the “pain level” builds exponentially over time. A few weeks of job hunting isn’t so bad; a few months in and you’ll begin to question why you ever left in the first place.

Some thoughts on how to improve the Centurion Lounges

Inspired by a job I should have applied for, but didn’t due to hesitation on job requirements. On the off-chance the right person reads this, I’d love your thoughts.

I’d probably never pay for a business class seat on a plane (with dollars, for the foreseeable future), but I’ve splurged on airport lounges for several years now. They make traveling immensely better, mainly by providing (1) a much better place than the terminal to wait until boarding starts, and (2) a reliable option for food that will be faster and tastier than what I’d find in the terminal otherwise, all for (what I consider) a reasonable subscription fee (I typically gain access via credit card or via airline status). I stop into a Centurion Lounge 20+ times/year as I fly IAH-SFO, and I’ve seen lounges for United (both Polaris and United Club locations), Delta, American Airlines, Turkish Airlines, along with other lounge collections (e.g., Plaza Premium, Priority Pass, etc.).

the business of centurion lounges

Centurion lounges originally were included as a perk of the Platinum or Centurion (“black”) card. You paid the annual fee for the cards and got unlimited access to the lounges as a benefit. With complaints about lounge overcrowding mounting, AmEx decided to being charging for guest access: $50/person ($30 if the guest was aged 2-17) for those who didn’t spend enough money on a Platinum card. Other airline lounges sometimes charge for drinks, though I don’t believe AmEx charges patrons for anything on the inside of the lounge. Much like a restaurant, AmEx is primarily paying out on rent (fixed, and space within airports is constrained as it is), labor (there’s a small army of folks dedicated to servicing the lounge), and food/drinks.

Given that the guest entrance fees were initially created to stave off overcrowding, why would AmEx bother improving the lounges? I believe it comes to down four key factors:

1. Competition in the credit card lounge space is heating up as Capital One and Chase begin building out their own lounges, which undermines arguably the number one selling/retention proposition of a highly core and profitable product for AmEx

2. Opportunities to delight Centurion cardholders, who likely have CLVs orders of magnitude higher than even the average Platinum cardholder; my point on lounges helping to retain profitable customers especially applies here

3. Opportunities to bolster other AmEx brands, such as Resy

4. Improving the lounges’ profitability in their own right, though I don’t expect lounges to amount anything beyond a rounding error at best for a company pulling in ~$10B in annual operating profit

jobs-to-be-done

The first question, of course, is to focus on why people use an airport lounge in the first place. A few ideas come to mind:

• Cardholders looking to kill time (especially if your flight just got delayed!) - I assume this is the most common reason someone would use the lounge, as folks with a plane about to leave likely will go straight to their gate

• Cardholders looking to eat and drink (Centurion lounges, in my experience, consistently have the best food out there, and I’ll never forget the fried chicken I had in the IAH lounge)

• Cardholders looking for a space to work (esp. business travellers)

• Cardholders looking to snag some shut-eye (esp. if they’re transitting to a faraway destination with a large time zone difference) - though Centurion lounges I’ve experienced are (1) not open 24x7 and (2) only accessible with a seat on a departing flight, so this may be less common for AmEx in particular

• Cardholders looking for a cleaner place to use the restroom or freshen up (AmEx uses the verbena hand soap from L’Occitane and it smells amazing)

• Finally, it’s worth calling out a very important group: non-cardholders that didn’t get a choice. I’m talking about kids, and nailing the experience for them can drive not only better loyalty from Mom and Dad (who just paid a handsome sum to get in) but also cement a decades-long loyalty. Get ‘em while they’re young.

improvements to be made

helping cardholders kill time with magazines, cards, and board games

How people choose to kill time will vary, and most folks are perfectly content to leverage whatever screens are available to them or chat up folks at the bar. That said, I believe that providing magazines, board games, or decks of cards to folks (perhaps on a library-like checkout basis) could be beneficial to those experiencing a long delay, or to families looking for less screen time for their kids. Watchouts include making sure there’s sufficient table real estate and that what you lend out gets (1) returned (2) in clean condition. If this is successful, you might see an increase in lounge entry fees collected or cardholder satisfaction levels.

extending amex’s lead in food

From my outsiders’ perspective, it appears that Centurion lounges routinely feature recipes from local chefs; assuming that ~half of lounge guests are local to the area, there’s an opportunity to leverage AmEx’s acquisition of Resy by highlighting the restaurants even further (or suggesting that guests can book a reservation for when they return). Here, you could measure success quite directly by tracking the uptick in reservation demand for the highlighted restaurant on Resy.

Additionally, AmEx could potentially pull from United’s Polaris playbook in offering an a-la-carte lounge menu to Centurion cardholders. This likely requires a much greater effort, but I’d be interested in seeing how such an offering would move the needle on cardholder retention (both for Platinum and Centurion cardholders; you wouldn’t want to anger the bulk of your users by dangling a carrot in front of them they’re not allowed to have).

quiet areas

Some folks that are extremely busy (and I’ve lived this before) are more than happy if you merely don’t bug them and let them help themselves. For these people, a designated quiet section (potentially even without children - the family rooms that exist in some lounges are amazing) could be incredibly valuable. A bit of sound deadening foam on the walls and plenty of outlets and desk space could go a long way for a time-crunched consultant. Althought I believe it’s rare that someone would want to sleep for the reasons discussed above, providing eyemasks could be a nice touch that shouldn’t break the bank - I found some incredible cheap ones on Amazon for under 20 cents each (though I assume Amex would want to splurge at least a little bit more). Continuing with the library checkout idea, you might let cardholders borrow high-end noise-cancelling headphones for their stay in the lounge. Again, success here looks like improved satisfaction.

providing a faster check-in experience with self-check-in

It seems to me that most folks are on the “happy path” for checking into the lounge, which could be automated (scan your boarding pass, scan your ID, swipe your card, and get a ticket for entry). I’d strongly bias toward leveraging that to free-up lounge staff to spend more time on the inside - cleaning and clearing tables, serving drinks, making the bathroom’s as clean as at Buc-ee’s, etc.

Farewell to BCG

When I was recruiting for my internship at BCG, I probably told the usual story: “Well, I don’t really know what I want to do after college. I’m not sure what industry I want to work in; I’m not sure what I want to do, so here I am, thinking about consulting.” As it turns out, there was an omission in that statement. I was also thinking about product management. I studied engineering and business in college, and discovered that most roles targeting business students didn’t care about my engineering background and vice versa - so there I was, thinking about consulting and product management.

The day of the interview, I left the Houston office at 5pm and got in an Uber home. At 5:20pm, Will Nolen [1] called me and told me that I got the job… and at 5:30pm, I got my rejection email from Google. I got out at the resume stage. No phone screen, no interview, just (in much more HR-friendly language) “thanks but no thanks”. I thought about things for a few minutes, decided I hated recruiting, and as soon as my return flight touched down I signed my offer on an airport counter (not the last time I’d be doing consulting-related activities on a laptop at an airport).

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As I look back on my time at BCG, the phrase College 2.0 comes to mind. “College” because it was a time of learning, a time surrounded by some very interesting friends (with whom I have trauma bonded quite thoroughly), and most importantly a time of growth. “2.0” because I now got paid and worked less [2]. Along the way, I learned new words (e.g., “tactically” and “align”), and had some incredible memories and “holy shit” moments - mechanical bulls in the office, fantastic Diwali and Holiday parties, summer retreats and A trips, sound room experiences, team dinners with good food and drink, MDP dinners with very good wine, 4 laps at Circuit of the Americas, a client “incident” at 1500… the list goes on and on [3].

The next chapter of my life, however, is not at BCG. My girlfriend and I have done long distance for several years now, and I’ll be closing the gap by moving to the Bay Area in June of this year. I’m also going to try my hand at product management, in case deciding the fate of 2.5 years of my career in the course of 2.5 seconds wasn’t a good move. Perhaps future chapters will bring me back - but until then, take care, and I love you all.

Oh look, what’s this?

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[1] Funny enough, Will Nolen was in product management before coming to BCG!

[2] On one hand, I avoided true burner projects throughout my 2.5 years; on the other I did study engineering in college.

[3] Pancake Night, sandwich cookoff, chili cookoff, Turkey Leg Hut, Friendsgiving (3 times, incl. the best turkey of my life), a couple of wedding celebrations (one in Cancun, two in Houston), a murder mystery party (two of them), Texas Games, poker nights, happy hours, an amazing trip to Banff, a beach day at Galveston, White Linen night, a type-II-fun weekend trip to Summit County, line dancing at Armadillo Palace, karaoke and dinner in Chinatown, several trips to the nearby cider bar, going to watch Nimesh Patel do standup comedy, happy hour at Eight Row Flint, a crawfish boil at Memorial Park, the usual going out on Washington, exploring some cistern in Houston, watching the most epic fireworks show at the River Oaks Country Club, hanging out at a partner’s lake house (at an artificial lake!), visiting Space Center Houston, watching a couple of Dynamo matches, hosting and attending housewarming parties, two-stepping, watching the World Cup, watching the Rockets beat the Cavs with incredible seats, jazz performances, Jess King (from Peloton) giving a 30-minute talk (which I wasn’t impressed by), volunteering at the Houston Food Bank, a muffin decorating class at Central Market, a visit to NYC for a conference (but that was quite disappointing, I’ll need to return to give it another shot), a training in Chicago, Manhattan Beach sunrises, cooking classes, Astros games, Barry’s Bootcamp classes (too loud - bring earplugs), the Greek festival, and virtual golf at the Four Seasons. This list is in addition to what’s listed above.

2023 in Review

2023 was a year of staying the path ahead of bigger changes to come - 2024 will bring a new job and a new city while laying the groundwork for an MBA soon - in short, the next 5 years are likely to be very different. 2023, though, was “more of the same” - I continued spending time with folks from work, visiting my girlfriend, working at my job, working out, etc. — and overall, I’d say that I had a good year doing that.

PROGRESS ON 2023 GOALS

1. Physically: Came up short here - I lost 11.5 pounds (versus my goal of maintaining weight), and dropped my body fat percentage from 24% to 21% (my goal was 15%). In November, I tried running a half marathon and couldn’t make it past ~10 miles. But the process itself developed for the better - I stopped spending time on Peloton classes and got a gym membership (which should help me when I travel); I started running outside at Memorial Park or along the bayou downtown.

2. Socially: Although I haven’t yet closed the distance gap with my girlfriend, I am seeing her (and the United safety video) more often. My social life in Houston is still going strong through BCG, which is nice, though I could probably do a better job of staying in touch with folks from college.

3. Professionally: I got promoted, and started thinking about what the next few years looks like - more on this in “goals for 2024”, though I didn’t take the GRE yet. I’ll still count this as a win - the promotion was the main thing that mattered.

4. Being “Scream-free”: Mixed results here - one on hand, I continued donating 20% of my income (though I’m a bit unsure of what exactly I have and haven’t been counting - not too worried about this since I get to set my own rules and I’m still following the spirit of things) and generally bought more reusable/organic products. On the other, I did one vegetarian meal a day for a bit but didn’t stick to it, and I didn’t remotely touch carbon offsets.

In short, I did okay this year on my goals - I achieved the main points, but I didn’t get everything I wanted (likely because I didn’t really re-visit these throughout the year).

HIGHLIGHTS FROM 2023

• I continued to spend a lot of time with friends that I made through work: a lot had to do with food (Pancake Night, a sandwiches cookoff, a chili cookoff that I brought store-bought canned chili to, visiting Turkey Leg Hut, the best turkey of my life at Friendsgiving), a couple of wedding celebrations (one in Cancun, another in Houston), a murder mystery party, a wonderful and crazy soccer game (Houston - Dallas), poker nights, happy hours, an amazing trip to Banff, a beach day at Galveston, White Linen night, a type-II-fun weekend trip to Summit County, and (of course) the Holiday Party.

• I continued having some interesting experiences through work, including my first visit(s) to Miami; this was the strongest Reality Distortion Field I’d ever seen (funny enough, I went to watch a Miami Heat game at what was then FTX arena… little did I know). I learned a bit about plastics recycling, a bit about renewables development, and a lot of having an amazing intern to work with. I witnessed an incredible party to celebrate the one-year founding of a company (at which I saw the most amazing magic that I had ever seen).

• I visited my girlfriend throughout the year, and we got to go to Hawaii for a full week. Oahu is paradise, Gertrude is a kind cat, Forty-Niner is a phenomenal restaurant, and I can’t wait to go back soon. We also went with my family to Cancun, which turned out to have been an excellent time.

• I went skiing with my “third set of grandparents” in Utah, and had a blast skiing trees.

• My dog, Sasha, passed away.

• I drove down to Boca Chica to watch the first launch of Starship (and damaged my car along the way). I bought the creme brulee torch, which I have zero regrets about. Later, I drove down to near Goliad, TX to watch the annual eclipse, and snagged one of the most epic photos I’ve ever taken.

• At the last second, my uncle convinced me to go to the Taylor Swift concert. It was 110% worth it, and I have a sweatshirt from the Eras Tour. Shortly after, I visited New York for a weekend to watch an Angele concert, which was also super impressive, and then about a month after that I saw the RHCP live, which would have made tweenage me incredibly happy.

• I started cooking again, and found a few new all-time favorites to add to my meal prep rotation. I also went down the mushroom rabbit hole, and experimented with oysters, trumpets, chicken of the woods, and wood ears.

• I visited India for the first time in seven years, and got to visit my grandparents and see my friend get married.

goals for 2024

1. Physically: Be able to run a half marathon in under 1:45:00 (a pace of 8:00 / mile). Continue lifting and hit 15% body fat while targeting a weight of 160-175 pounds. Ultimately though, as long as I have a solid process here I’ll be happy.

2. Move to the SF Bay Area, close the gap with my girlfriend (likely between March and June), and get established in the area socially and financially (which will be tougher given higher taxes and higher cost of living).

3. Transition into a new career that I find enjoyable, and that will continue to develop my skills. Prepare for business school by taking the GMAT and getting a highly competitive score that positions me well for the Stanfords and Harvards of the world.

things to ponder

• What next step career-wise is really going to be the right one for me?

• How will I find new people in the Bay Area?

Hunger

When my mom’s side of the family moved to the US, my mother was 14, and her brothers were 9 and 7. My grandparents came to own a low-end motel (and “low-end” is being quite generous), with my mother and uncles as “employees” that cleaned hotel rooms. They were, quite simply, poor - in addition to being brown in small-town South Carolina.

What happened next is a remarkable reflection of the culture they were a part of. My mother, the eldest child, was going to go to college, but her father essentially forced her to stay nearby. She attended Francis Marion University, which you have probably never heard of before, and majored in something that entailed spending some amount of time at the library (which my grandfather would call to verify). Culture had dictated her fate, via her parents. Her brothers were allowed to study at the University of South Carolina and at Emory University. One of them pursued a medical career, doing a residency at Johns Hopkins, a fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic, and soon after became a spinal surgeon at the Steadman Hawkins Clinic in Vail. I don’t know much about medicine, but I am assured that this is VERY impressive. The other joined PwC out of college, and then quit after a few years to start his own hotel business with my father. Today, both uncles and my father are quite successful, at least the way that most people use the word. [1]

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This past weekend, I was at a wedding in Kansas City for a second cousin that I didn’t recall meeting. It was time for the reception, but I wasn’t feeling very social, so I stepped outside with my father and my uncle and sipped on my drink. We had all taken direct flights from Houston to Kansas City, which for some reason was the conversation topic of the moment - being able to spend the money on the more convenient option and not having to scrounge pennies together. At some point, one of them said the three magic words that every immigrant wants to say at some point: Well, it’s okay to spend the money… we made it.

Indeed, they had. There’s a hunger that being born into that position gives you [2]; it’s something that I, for better or worse, don’t have. On one hand, the way I grew up is leaps and bounds better than the way that my mother did; the flip side is that hunger is a very particular asset that is hard to replicate. At BCG, it’s rare to find anyone with that hunger - most people have grown up privileged [3]; I’ve only met one person so far whose life story reminds me of my mother’s and uncle’s. There’s little similarity in the stories themselves - just the hunger that I’ve heard in his voice.

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I’m 25, working at a Very Good Job by most people’s definition. Indeed, my life is probably beyond what my parents could have hoped to provide for me. I don’t have the same degree of hunger - which is probably evident from other writings on this website about charity, goals I’m setting in my life beyond “make a shitton of money”, random musings on my career from Good Will Hunting, and the Mexican Fisherman parable. Is that a problem? In my view, no - I think the traditional definition of “success” misses quite a bit - but it does hint at a fundamental shift in values from one generation to another.

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[1] As far as I know, this is true, but at some level it doesn’t even matter if it’s true; the story has taken on a life of its own.

[2] You don’t necessary need to be born into a disadvantaged position to have the hunger; my focus on my uncles’ backgrounds here is merely to highlight the most relevant cause for their particular scenario.

[3] My old roommate’s hunger was less about accumulating wealth and much more about excelling in his work; likewise, the drive to be excellent is decently common at BCG. I’m definitely conflating the two here, which muddies things.

The Biggest Dog.

I got Sasha when I was 9, and I don’t really think I knew what I was getting into. I was a kid, and so the whole a-dog-is-a-responsibility thing hadn’t fully clicked in my mind. We went to my dad’s friend’s home; he was a breeder (I think) and made his own dog food. There were 8 puppies in the litter, Sasha was the prettiest. I don’t know where the name Sasha came from, but it felt right.

Sasha loved people. Sasha’s spot was just outside of the back door; she wanted to be able to watch us through the glass. When people would come over, she’d want to be inside to say hi. When we didn’t let her in, she’d run and bodyslam the door to let us know that she really wanted to come inside. The door never broke, thankfully.

She’d escape the backyard and run around — we had to be careful about locking the garage door and making sure there weren’t any holes in the fence, else she’d run away. At least the block knew whose dog she was.

Sasha loved food, and she did not eat like other dogs. She convinced my mom to make her multiple eggs every morning for breakfast, along with a slice of American cheese. She was a Gujurati dog, and had her fair share of roti and chicken curry. When we’d grill out, she was out there with us, and her energy level showed how excited she was to eat the food that she knew she’d inevitably get. This was not always the case. When we first got her, she was perfectly content with dry dog food, and I tried teaching her to eat different colors of dog food, since I didn’t yet know that dogs saw a muted color space.

Sasha loved car rides. She’d stick her face out of the window to sample all of the sights and smells in the air; my car was hers. To the very last day, she looked forward to car rides.

I left for college in the middle of Sasha’s life, and I was no longer with her on a daily basis. I would come home to visit during breaks, but I wouldn’t know her routine. I knew that she was going to go eventually, especially at her age - she was prone to slips and falls and couldn’t get up by herself. She was a bit overweight for most of her life and had a fatty mass on her rear left leg. I knew it was coming, but she was still my dog.

I was visiting my girlfriend in San Francisco one weekend, and had issues with connecting my phone to the cell network. When I got it fixed Sunday morning, I saw a text from the day prior that my mom had sent - Sasha would be put down that week on Friday. At the time, I felt sad, but not broken or destroyed. I didn’t cry. I knew that this was coming, I hadn’t lived with her daily for six and a half years, and I trusted my parents to make the right decision on when it was time.

The day before, my friend told me that she had lost her dog. That night, my dad and I grilled out for her. She got a filet and a good chunk of my dad’s ribeye. We raised a glass of wine to her life, and took her on a nice long walk. It was cold, which made her feel better. I knew it was my last night with her, but it hadn’t fully hit yet.

At work the next day, I went on a walk with the same friend, and told her that I felt like I saw the train coming, but couldn’t tell if I was on the tracks or at the station. The appointment was at 3. I left work around 1:15, picked up a double-meat hamburger at my mom’s request (just bread and meat), and fed her piece by piece. She scarfed it down happily. Sasha, my mom, and I drove over to our old neighborhood and I let her walk around - she seemed happy and excited to be in her old stomping grounds, where she spent fourteen years of her life before moving elsewhere. I was fine, emotionally.

In the vet clinic, I weighed her on the scale. 49.5 pounds, down 3 or 4 in the past month. I watched as they put an IV tube in. That was when I realized that I was very, very much on the tracks, and I broke down crying next to my mom. She comforted me as she did the same. The vets gave us time to say our last goodbyes to her, and I gave her two kisses.

We called them back in, and I watched as the final two liquids went through the tube. The first was white, and I watched my dog fall asleep. The second was a pinkish-reddish color, and I knew from the moment I saw it that it was the tube of death. I ugly cried as I watched 5 mL of liquid death slowly flow into her. Afterwards, my dad gave her her last command: Go Play!

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January 2, 2007 - February 3, 2023

2022 in Review

In a sense, 2022 was a year of staying the course - there weren’t any dramatic changes in my career or personal life; now that I’m out of college and school the path foward is less apparent and more what I want it to be. It’s been a good year regardless, and being on cruise control isn’t the same as taking things easy.

PROGRESS ON 2022 GOALS

1. Physically: I wanted to add muscle mass, with a target of growing from 160 to 180 pounds. While I only got a DEXA scan at the end of the year, I ended 2022 at 174.4 lbs. (not bad) and 23.8% body fat (excluding bone mass), which was a bit higher than I would have preferred. I also wanted to hit 7,000 minutes on Peloton, and ended at ~6,600. I’ll give myself a B here - things could have been better, but overall this was pretty close.

2. Socially: I did spend a solid amount of time with friends that I made through work, and even though nearly all of the friends I’ve made outside of work are folks from college or before, I would like to spend a bit more time with them to make sure that previously strong friendships don’t fade unintentionally. I was able to see my girlfriend every month except for June, though I was happy to spend about 2 continuous weeks with her toward the end of the year. Nonetheless, the challenge is getting beyond “relationship maintenance mode” with nightly calls and short weekend visits and into “relationship building” with longer trips and more quality time. I’ll give myself a B here also - while I’m happy overall with my social life, I think I could have focused a bit better old old friends.

3. Professionally: I definitely feel comfortable in my role at BCG now, and even though I can tell some obvious places to improve, I can feel good about work. I’ll give myself an A here.

4. “Being a good person” and giving more than I receive is hard to measure, but earlier I was thinking about the financial life I wanted to lead and landed on this idea of being able to (in addition to donations) buy products that were “better” not just in terms of quality, but in terms of being made without underpaid labor, being made sustainably, etc. My dad jokes about buying “scream-free” eggs at the grocery store, and I don’t have a better phrase for it right now, so I’m going with living a scream-free life. Overall, I’ll give myself an A here on account of donating my usual 20% of gross salary, but in the upcoming year I’ll have a bit stronger codification.

5. Getting outside: I did get quite a few trips to places “outside” this year, namely over the Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends (both to Colorado) in addition to occasional hikes with my girlfriend in the Bay Area. However, I think I missed a lot of opportunities to run outside and enjoy the bayou (I’m only half-joking). I’ll give myself a C, just because I ought to be running outside more.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM 2022

• I hung out with friends from work… a lot. Smaller events included line dancing at Armadillo Palace, a murder mystery party, karaoke and dinner in Chinatown, several trips to the nearby cider bar, going to watch Nimesh Patel do standup comedy, happy hour at Eight Row Flint, a crawfish boil at Memorial Park, the usual going out on Washington, exploring some cistern in Houston, watching the most epic fireworks show at the River Oaks Country Club, hanging out at a partner’s lake house (at an artificial lake!), visiting Space Center Houston, watching a couple of Dynamo matches, hosting and attending housewarming parties, two-stepping, Friendsgiving, and watching the World Cup.

• Also through work, I went to watch the Rockets beat the Cavs with incredible seats, watched several partners ride a mechanical bull that got set up in the office, watched a jazz performance followed by a trip to the “sound room” in one of the principals’ townhomes, a visit to Austin for a Texas office sports tournament (I didn’t play, but it was a fun trip), watched Jess King (from Peloton) give a 30-minute talk (which I wasn’t impressed by), went to an office retreat in the Hill Country (where I messed up the dress code, bigtime), had some incredible dinners throughout Houston, volunteered at the Houston Food Bank, did a muffin decorating class at Central Market, visited New York City for a conference (but that was quite disappointing, I’ll need to return to give it another shot), went to a Diwali party, flew to Chicago for a week of training with a bunch of Associates that started at the same time as me, got to drive a GT4 around the Circuit of the Americas for 4 laps (epic, but I also hyped myself up too much for that), worked from Los Angeles for a week (Manhattan Beach is insanely gorgeous for the sunrise), and went to an epic holiday party.

• On the topic of work, I was only on two cases the entire year, both of which worked out quite well. The second one introduced me to work travel, which I’m overall quite happy with.

• I kicked off the year by finishing a visit to my girlfriend, during which I did my first wine tasting in Napa. Honestly, I’m more of a beer guy.

• One of my best friends from college got engaged, and then later in the year, married. I was one of the groomsmen, which was a fun experience.

• Later this year, my girlfriend got a puppy named Mabel. She’s such a sweet dog with a fear of rain, a love for chasing the ball, and fear-based aggression.

• I developed a love for tinned fish, especially sardines and mackerel. For those interested King Oscar sardines in extra virgin olive oil (or Mediterranean style) is the good stuff at about $3. Patagonia Provisions makes a roasted garlic mackerel for $6 that’s out of this world, especially if eaten with fresh toasted sourdough.

• Along similar lines, Central Market released a new line of pricey but similarly out-of-this-world pasta sauces. I bought more jars than necessary, but they’ve all been fantastic.

• I got a refined understanding of the medical system when a dog bit me in a sensitive region.

• I visited my girlfriend for a week around early May and got to explore Ft. Funston. We took Mabel camping, but she got a bit territorial and had to leave early.

• I visited Austin to see my other best friend from college, who got some kittens. I also went to the gun range for the first time, which was a pretty cool experience.

• I went to Rocky Mountain National Park with some friends, which was an all-around epic experience that I highly recommend, especially if you stay at an Airbnb on 7 acres.

• I moved apartments with my roommate. The new place is significantly nicer, and that enabled me to host many more events.

• I visited Summit County with my girlfriend over the Labor Day weekend. We rode e-bikes from Breckenridge to Copper Mountain, which was an amazing experience. I went back a few months later to hang with an old friend from high school - we hiked in the cold.

• I spent a weekend in Nashville with work friends. We did a pedal pub, which was a lot of fun (and a lot of booze). Hattie B’s hot chicken was excellent, as was the Lane Motor Museum and the amount of live music on Broadway.

• I finally checked off going to see one of my favorite bands (Harbour) perform live with my girlfriend. Musically, it’s better on the album, but they had awesome energy the entire time.

• I had a family reunion on my Mom’s side in the Hill Country. I also had a family reunion on my Dad’s side on a cruise through Mexico and Honduras (but highly tourist-y parts, so I don’t really count it as travel abroad). I have thoughts on cruises.

goals for 2023

1. Physically: (1) Maintain my current weight of 175 pounds, but drop my body fat percentage to be 15%. (2) Run a half marathon in under 100 minutes.

2. Socially: (1) Grow in my relationship, and close the distance gap to be under 3 hours door-to-door. I should be seeing my girlfriend every other week by the end of the year. (2) Maintain great friendships in Houston with folks I met through work. (3) Put effort and thought into maintaining relationships with friends from the pre-BCG era.

3. Professionally: (1) Get promoted to Consultant. (2) Develop a plan for the next few years - when would I go back to school? Do I want to think about a career shift? (3) Take the GRE, and get a highly competitive score for Stanford’s GSB and MSE programs.

4. Being “Scream-free”: (1) Continue donating 20% of my gross earnings from my job. (2) Live a “scream-free” lifestyle as much as possible, incl. leaning pescatarian. (3) Begin to contribute to high-quality carbon offsets demand.

things to ponder

• Although I’m comfortable right now, is the character development value from diving into the deep-end of a “radical” lifestyle change worth it?

One year into consulting

The challenge with any sort of decision related to college or a first-job is that nearly everyone only has one data point to base their experiences on. If you’re a high-schooler looking for information on where to go to college, you might (after making your way past college rankings that only serve your confirmation bias) begin to ask current students at those colleges what their experience is like - even better, you may ask students who had choices, and why they picked between one school or another.

This actually ends up being lower signal than you might expect, since by-and-large people don’t think they made the wrong decision. If things end up well for you, then clearly you went to The Right College, even though it’s quite possible that any number of options would have worked out fine for you. I myself was picking between UT, Rice, and A&M; I took the burnt orange path and while I enjoyed it, in all likelihood I would have enjoyed A&M or Rice just as much. Although I’m convinced I learned so much from my experience at UT, it’s unclear that the different experiences and learnings I would have received had I gone to Rice or A&M would have been any less valuable.

This is the same issue with a first job. I went to BCG and have, for the most part, enjoyed my experience. It’s unclear to me that my life would have been that much different had I gone to Bain or McKinsey in terms of Things That Matter; I don’t know how things would have played out had I started off in product management or some other field entirely.

Nonetheless, personal experience is as good of a signal as I can think of to share. In this post, I’ll give a peek behind the curtain for my first year at BCG, and hopefully in the process enable you to answer the ultimate question: “What can I expect out of a first job in consulting?”

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The Scorecard

A while ago, I wrote this post outlining different dimensions on which you could evaluate a job. It’s a decent framework to use, so I’ll dive into my thoughts on each of those topics item-by-item.

Salary and Benefits

I’ve written about nonlinearities between salary and happiness here; they frame my attitudes toward salary (in short, “good salary” allows you to reach your happiness asymptote, every dollar beyond that is pretty much runway). For a job that’s fresh out of college, I think consulting pays quite well, even if it’s not the absolute best in this dimension. BCG has one nationwide set of salaries for their consulting staff, so whether you’re based in Houston or San Francisco you’ll be making the exact same amount, despite the massive difference in cost of living. First-year associates (fresh out of undergraduate) have a $110,000 base salary, with total compensation (TC) of about $135,000. For Houston, the salary is great. For SF or NYC, I can see it being much more restrictive.

Salary progression is very, very fast. With one promotion (usually 2 years), you’re nearly doubling your TC, and those who can make it to Managing Director and Partner (MDP) can 10x their earnings in 10 years. If you’re interested in more numbers, just Google “BCG salary site:reddit.com”.

My impression is that base salary is usually comparable to investment banking (another field that many folks recruiting for consulting are probably also interested in), though the IB bonuses are much larger. TC is generally lower than entry-level jobs in tech (e.g., product management), though those roles seem to be clustered in markets with higher costs-of-living.

Where consulting shines is benefits. Although the exact expense policy varies from case-to-case (consulting projects are called “cases”), you can generally expect your out-of-pocket expenses to be $0 when travelling. It isn’t a stretch to say that nearly everything is paid for, including some absolutely wild experiences that most 22-year olds couldn’t even believe (all of these have actually happened to me):

• $3,000 for dinner at Uchi for 7 people feat. A5 beef cooked on a hot rock and a sea urchin

• Several suites at Astros games, each of which is a low five-figure commitment

• Five-digit annual budgets for social events with co-workers, by cohort (on top of several other five-digit budgets for specific events and the office as a whole) - we’ve used this for weekend retreats to other cities, karaoke nights, secret santa parties, etc.

• Practice Area affiliation events where everyone got their choice of a VR headset (Quest 2), AirPods Pro, or a Theragun mini (Nobu was catered and they had a caviar bar)

• Dinners hosted at the very, very nice homes and ranches of MDPs

• Phenomenal healthcare plans with $20 ER visits and comprehensive mental health benefits

Bottom-line: consulting pays decently well; even if there are other jobs that pay better out of college. I can see your attitude on this changing based on what city you’re based out of, though. Benefits are unmatched.

Work/Life Balance

Work/Life Balance (WLB) is a tricky subject, because it’s mostly relative compared to your expectations of “normal”. Case in point: college can have anywhere from terrible to great WLB. Your typical engineering major is likely going to have “bad” WLB, whereas your typical liberal arts major will have “great” WLB (I’m stereotyping, but it gets the point across). Most people interested in consulting are probably already working a ton in college, devoting Sunday through Friday to nearly nonstop work between classes and clubs and jobs; social time is usually reserved for Saturdays and whenever you could squeeze time in. If that sounds familiar, then relax — consulting might be an improvement over your current lifestyle in some ways. All-nighters will be a thing of the past; while I’ve heard about weekend work happening, it’s quite rare*, and it’s not too difficult to tell which cases will be “burners”. That said, some cases are burners - this is the start of a theme here, but your WLB will be 99% dependent on which case you’re on at any given point in time.

For reference, I’d say my typical day on an average-workload case starts at 9am (unless I have a meeting earlier in the morning) and ends somewhere around 9-11pm (though I would have eaten and gone home during that time, which I don’t count as hours worked). Depending on the exact log-off time, I might workout (which happens 1-2 times during the workweek) and shower before I call my girlfriend for an hour, sleep for 7.5 hours, wake up, get ready, and do the whole thing again. If you’re talking to someone who’s working a standard 40-hour work week (which is to say, nearly everyone else), they’ll be absolutely shocked when you tell them that schedule — but hey, things could be worse. You could be an investment banker.

Bottom-line: expect to work 55-60 hours a week (give or take, depending on your case), but if you’re already working pretty hard in college then this usually won’t feel too bad.

* It’s not uncommon to spend a bit of time Sunday night working on non-case “chores” - things like filing expense reports, planning for the week to come, cleaning out the inbox, etc.

organizational prestige

BCG is prestigious - hence the number of people on LinkedIn who write “ex-BCG” in their headline (one of the more ridiculous LinkedIn mannerisms). McKinsey is slightly more prestigious, but they can’t seem to stop getting into scandals. The worst BCG has had (as far as I can tell in recent memory) is a bunch of people on Reddit wearing tinfoil hats saying that we tried to kill GameStop.

Bottom-line: Very, very good.

Social Impact / Deeper Meaning

Most cases at BCG are usually societally neutral, or slightly beneficial at best. If you care about climate, BCG doesn’t seem to do any traditional oil-and-gas work (from what I can tell), and seems to be making moves to really up the amount of climate/sustainability work they sell. Ultimately, however, most new hires shouldn’t count on reliably being able to create a better world on a daily basis. This is another area where things are entirely dependent on your case - some cases are legitimately very cool (e.g. public sector work, global health work) and some cases are very beige (e.g. building a new tool to help a client’s customers request a service online instead of having to call in).

Bottom-line: case dependent, but most of the cases out there have very little social benefit.

People and Culture

There are actually two groups of people that you interact with on any given day:

1. People on your case team, with whom you’re working with day-in, day-out

2. People in your home office, with whom you’re socializing with on weekends

Generally as an Associate (or Consultant), the Project Leader (PL) or Principal (Pr) on your case that serves as your direct manager will have the greatest impact on your day-to-day work experience. Like any other job, some PLs/Pr’s will be great, and others won’t. Most people end up (eventually) finding a PL/Pr that they work well with and stick with them, which means that eventually most people have positive experiences on the manager front - but until then, things are incredibly case-dependent (and there’s likely survivorship bias at play here).

The folks in your home office, however, are going to end up becoming some of your closest friends. Adjusting to post-college life is hard; becoming fully independent and finding a social group to spend time with are actually incredibly difficult tasks, especially when you’re trying to figure out work also. BCG has the rare advantage of placing you in the same position as dozens of other 20-somethings at the same time, the net result of which is that from Day 1 you’ll be with a group of people that are your age, that can relate to the daily ups-and-downs, in the same life-stage as you (usually - most A’s aren’t married and don’t have kids). I have yet to see another industry that offers that - as far as I can tell, tech doesn’t offer that, banking doesn’t offer that, and “industry” (for the most part) doesn’t offer that.

Bottom-line: Find a good manager and your day-to-day improves drastically. Friends you make in your home office are my favorite part of this job, by far.

what you work on

Back in college, I wanted to work for Tesla. They were cool, and pushing the boundaries for EVs more than any other company (I’d argue that that’s probably still true). I wasn’t sure what I would do there, but that was a problem for a later time – I just wanted a job at Tesla, so I ended up applying to 8 different positions there (and 6 at Southwest, 5 at Microsoft, etc.). I carried that mentality into my first staffing conversation (where you list out your preferences for cases), and said something more-or-less along the lines of “my first priority is to work in tech, but I don’t care what I do”. I ended up staffed on a re-organization effort for a very large tech player, learning (the hard way) that what you do matters far, far more than what company you do it for. A recruiter working at Tesla has more in common with a recruiter at Walmart than an HR rep at Tesla.

At BCG, what you do on a day-to-day basis can vary immensely based on your case – so far I’ve done the re-organization work mentioned above, helped to launch a new product, and assisted with go-to-market strategy. The actual industry that my clients were in didn’t really mean too much. Tactically speaking*, you’ll be making a lot of slides, and (depending on the case) occasionally hopping into Excel, so the mechanics may not feel too different from case-to-case.

Bottom-line: Your day-to-day is not materially impacted by industry. This is heavily variable from case-to-case, but plan on getting really familiar with PowerPoint and maybe even Excel.

* “Tactically speaking…” is a consultant’s favorite phrase to replace “At a low-level…”

learning and growth

Consultants at BCG get formal performance reviews every 6 months, and the end result of that is a “matrix placement” that ranks you from 1-4 on two dimensions (performance at your current job, and your potential to take on the roles and responsibilities of the next position up). In college, you’re evaluated on a more-or-less weekly basis on a 100-point scale; moving to BCG involves getting numerical feedback 25x less often with 25x less precision. That’s not to say you don’t get other types of feedback – typically, I’ve had a feedback session every other week with my manager – but it’s harder to translate “here are some things you did well over the past couple of weeks, and here are some things that you can improve moving forward” into a strong sense of how you’re tracking over time.

Overall, it seems that BCG generally places a strong emphasis on learning and growth. Some managers are better than others, and some cases are more conducive to it (it’s inherently easier on an easy-going case for your manager to create development opportunities).

Bottom-line: very case-dependent, but you’ll have to get used to guiding your growth from qualitative feedback.

location

There are two sets of locations to consider in consulting:

1. Where you actually work

2. Your home office

Since travel is a large part of the job, those two places are usually not the same — typically, folks are travelling about half of the time (though I’ve managed to only travel for about 2 weeks in my first year). Most people who don’t travel much tend to want to travel more; most people who travel a lot (or have families) tend to want to travel less. Different cases travel to different locations (depending on where the client and the team are located); typically you’d travel to another large city. That said, your case determines how much time you actually get to spend around town; in my experience you often won’t spend too much time away from the office or hotel. Travel isn’t really as glamorous as you might think it is.

Your choice of home office is quite important, since it can influence which cases you’re on (more on that later) but also because it determines your cost of living the days when you’re not on the road. I’m obviously biased, but I can’t imagine paying $3,000 a month to live in a small apartment in NYC or SF only to be gone most of the time.

Bottom-line: You’ll travel based on your case, but I’d recommend picking a home office by prioritizing somewhere cheap.

Compatibility with Future Goals

Back during college recruiting, I always thought of optionality – I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do in the future, but I chose consulting understanding that when I did leave I’d be able to go anywhere and do anything. That’s somewhat true, if “doing anything” is non-technical. By-and-large, consultants (without prior experience in the field) don’t go to become software engineers, doctors, or lawyers (but then again, people getting degrees in computer science aren’t going into consulting in the first place, so perhaps this is just availability bias due to the low base rate). There are consultants who go into tech, healthcare, and law careers* – but everyone I know who did this had some sort of background in the field.

Bottom-line: If you’re not interested in going into a technical field, there’s lots of optionality.

* Note that by “tech careers”, I specifically mean doing technical work, not doing some business function (e.g., supply chain management) at a company that happens to be in the tech industry.

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OTHER STUFF

Three comments that I wasn’t sure where to place, but I still feel are important enough to include:

• Staffing is the process by which people get assigned to cases. It’s one of the most important processes to master as a consultant, since it determines your day-to-day experience. Typically, you’ll get to provide some input into what you’re looking for (and conversely, what you want to avoid). I’d strongly encourage new consultants to prioritize people (specifically, managers with a strong reputation for developing new hires) and teaming model (in-person or at the client site over virtual) over everything else, with day-to-day content (what you work on) as a strong runner-up. Everything else (e.g., industry, location, etc.) can be safely de-prioritized the first few times - most consultants stay for at least 2 years, so there’s plenty of time to co-locate in New York or work in whatever industry you’re passionate about.

• There’s a very real adjustment period when you first join — nearly every single person I’ve talked to says it can take 6-12 months to begin to feel comfortable at the job (note: that’s different from actually being good at it). Especially for folks whose first job out of college is in consulting, it’s like drinking from the fire hose since you’re learning both how to work in general and learning how to work in consulting.

• My best work-related decision was becoming friends with the folks in my office, by far. You don’t work with them that often, but they all understand the ups and downs of consulting life, which makes for a good shoulder to lean on when you need support. Most people are open to making friends - all it takes is a catalyst. I’ve found “Hey y’all, I was thinking about doing X at Y time at Z location this weekend, react with a ⭐ if you’d like to join!” to work well.

Alan Watts | Live Fully Now

Alan Watts’ full speech below:

My goodness, don’t you remember when you went first to school? You went to kindergarten. And kindergarten, the idea was to push along so that you could get into first grade. And then push along so that you could get into second grade, third grade, and so on, going up and up and then you went to high school and this was a great transition in life. And now the pressure is being put on, you must get ahead. You must go up the grades and finally be good enough to get to College. And then when you get to College, you’re still going step by step, step by step, up to the great moment in which you’re ready to go out into The World.

And then when you get out into this famous World, comes the struggle for success in profession or business. And again, there seems to be a ladder before you, something for which you’re reaching for all the time.

And then, suddenly, when you’re about 40 or 45 years old, in the middle of life, you wake up one day and say “Huh? I’ve arrived. And, by Joe, I feel pretty much the same as I’ve always felt — in fact I’m not so sure that I don’t feel a little bit cheated.”

Because, you see, you were fooled. You were always living for somewhere where you aren’t. And while, as I said, it is of tremendous use for us to be able to look ahead in this way and to plan. There is no use in planning for a future, which when you get to it and it becomes the present, you won’t be there. You’ll be living in some other future which hasn’t yet arrived. And so in this way, one is never able actually to inherit and enjoy the fruits of one’s actions.

You can’t live it all unless you can live fully, now.

A phenomenal ad (in my book) about products fulfilling core desires for their users. Volvo goes right to the top of Maslow’s hierarchy - it’s not a car to get you from A to B, it’s not about the luxury or the safety or the fuel economy - it’s the product that gets you to live fully.

Chapters

I was driving home yesterday, and talking with a friend who had his last day at BCG today - he’s going to medical school and changing up his day-to-day quite substantially (staring at a computer all day making slides to staring at books all day making flashcards is considered a switch-up, I suppose). Talking to medical school students is interesting (for me at least) because of how clear their path forward is, for the next decade, at a time when most people are trying to pick from the fig tree. Pre-med majors have a simple (enough) life path: get into medical school, go to medical school, go do your residency, find a job as a doctor, and earn a six (maybe even seven) figure salary while helping improve quality-of-life for the rest of us. Folks working on their PhDs or JDs also have a similar experience; they have been given a clear big-picture goal.

Back when I graduated from UT, I wrote about my thoughts being in-between two big chapters in my life story.

I was walking with my girlfriend the other day after graduation, and I recall telling her about how I’m in the intermezzo. I’ve spent five years with a very clear goal in mind - graduate - and my next big life chapter (working) starts in exactly two months. During that time, I don’t really have the same level of motivation and purpose and order to my life direction that I’ve had for the greater portion of my life so far — and this means that I’ll likely turn to Autopilot to determine how I spend my time.

I’ve been thinking lately about choosing the next chapter - about how to choose the next chapter. At the end of each year, I post “year-in-review”s to close out another calendar and take a look back - what happened, how I grew, and how I did on goals I set for myself. I’ve found it to be a good way to pause, reflect, and think about how my life is tracking at a more macro-scale picture; the day-to-day often leaves little time for ruminations on the greater goals. But what if I’m still thinking too narrowly? If I go on Autopilot and only think one year ahead at a time, it’s easy to let the outside world tell me what my goals are; the answer to “what comes next” is going to be “get a promotion and become a consultant at BCG”. After that it’ll be to get promoted and become a Project Leader. A Principal. A Partner. An MDP. Nothing’s wrong with making partner, being a doctor/researcher/lawyer. Certainly, the outside world will view you as successful for your career growth [1]. But success at goals that aren’t fully aligned [2] with your goals and dreams and aspirations isn’t quite success.

That’s the challenge: during the day-to-day, when the gospel we’re told and the gospel we tell ourselves revolves around “I can’t wait to be promoted so I can do the same job earning 75% more” - can I remove myself? Can I become the author of my life story, and write the next chapters intentionally and with meaning? Or will I end up a character?

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[1] There was another conversation during the same car ride on American work culture and how much more dominating work is in the lives of Americans versus other countries, but that’s a topic that I’m not fully qualified to discuss.

[2] Yes, I used aligned in a paragraph talking about consulting. I’ve fully adopted the lingo.

Drive

It’s another night at my job where I find myself questioning things - I feel stressed by my job, and so I ask: Why?

Because I have to have a solid chunk of work to show at my meeting tomorrow at 8:30am, and I haven’t really done much yet of anything.

Why?

Because I spent too much time today doing nothing productive - instead watching Youtube videos, walking around, calling my girlfriend, going to a cider bar for trivia night…

Why?

Because I’m unmotivated by the work on my plate.

Why?

Because I don’t find it particularly meaningful. I’m just a 24-year-old making slides to tell the CEO what he already knows.

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After my round of Five Whys and a rabbit hole adventure down into the parable of the Mexican Fisherman, I assume that the Panic Monster will arrive at some point to rescue me from my insane levels of procrastination… hopefully early enough to the point where I can get a few sleep cycles in for the night.

But while I’m procrastinating, I wonder: what if I stopped? Why am I at this job? For the prestige of being a consultant? For the toolkit that I’m learning about (which, so far, appears to be mostly just keyboard shortcuts and a drive toward “being tactical”)? What if I decided to switch over to a new world - one with 9-to-5 work schedules, an ability to do stuff like attend a running club after work, where I didn’t have to endure dinners that last more than 2x as long as dinners with my friends whom I know 10x better?

But then, I think about how lucky I am. Because not everyone was able to get this job, and because I’m in a position that others would kill to be in (metaphorically, I hope). Because I spent time and effort and money and energy into graduating with three degrees, and I’m now at an elite firm where elite people go do impactful things (🙄, but also holy shit I can’t believe the company has people working on something this cool). Not everyone has what I have - the education, the position, the overall life-security — I drew the long straw, and I ought to do the right thing that a Good Person would do if they were in my position.

And so, I will put my head down, suck it up, and get to work. I will make the two slides that need to be made, I will go to bed at a hopefully reasonable time, and I will, in all due likelihood, forget about this incident in a few days when I’m back with the best coworkers in the world who are there through each peak and valley. And I will forget about this incident when I feel lucky and excited to be at a firm where crazy things happen that make you feel like you’re sure that the universe aligned and you’re in the right place at the right time.

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Stay tuned for when I write my 1-year-review of consulting. That’ll be a doozy.

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Update | Eat the frog.

It’s been a few days since my procrastination nightmare, and I’m feeling (perhaps unsurprisingly) like I’ve gotten everything wrong. Did I really not want to do that work? It was in fact exactly what I said I wanted to do. A very solid number of hours today have been spent in flow state working on this project (even though I’m clearly procrastinating right now), and I had that sense of contentedness that comes to a working man who finds himself one with the work. I’m sure that sounds like bullshit, but it’s a hard to describe feeling that clicks once you experience it - have most people hit true flow?

In any case, was I really just being a massive baby? I suppose I don’t really know what to think and what to trust. On one hand, I clearly didn’t enjoy the experience - but looking back after the fact, why? It wasn’t really that much work - I must have knocked everything out in under 2 hours. It wasn’t really that hard - again, 2 hours.

I was talking to my principal today, and he mentioned that “sometimes, you have to eat the frog. It’s generally better to eat the frog first.” I’ve sat here typing away to procrastinate long enough. Dinner’s ready.

2021 in Review

2021 marked a new stage in life: working at my first full-time job that’s “long-term” (in the sense that it’s not just for the summer). Life feels much different than it did in college - primarily, it’s a feeling that the world has finally starting demanding responsibility from me - likely due to the combination of having a job and having a relationship and no longer having my college comrades down the street for whatever shenanigans we would have gotten into. At the same time, the world (and I) got vaccines for COVID-19, and the Omicron variant is making it clear being done with COVID isn’t happening anytime soon. Overall, this year was a great way to wrap up my college experience and start a new one, even if the environment around me is as hectic as ever.

Progress on 2021 goals

1. Continue being active - Peloton mentions that I logged 3,900-ish minutes on the platform, which is likely the best metric I have for this, even though it doesn’t include activity off of the app (e.g. runs, bike rides, or hikes). My Apple Watch is the best means of tracking activity (since I always wear it), but that’s also imperfect (as it frequently gives me ghost activity calories / minutes) and it lacks a convenient “Year in Review” summary. I imagine Apple will be adding that soon. In any case, the activity level is a bit lower than it should have been, and I could have been more consistent with my exercise habits. I’ll give myself a B-/C+ on this.

2. Continue to grow relationships with people - I’d say I feel pretty great about the new friends I’ve made at my new job - it’s the highlight of working at a consultancy, since (a) your same-level coworkers are your age, and (b) there’s dozens of them. Even the folks who are a rank or two above you are pretty young in the grand scheme of things. I’m super grateful that I’ve found a great group of friends at my new job. A.

3. Professionally - I definitely had a rough start to my job, and don’t think that I hit the ground running. That said, it sounds like I’ve had a pretty normal experience, and that most folks struggle for the first few months (I’ve heard repeatedly that the first six months to a year are the adjustment period). I think the was my biggest struggle in 2021, as I went from an environment (college) where I was really good at what I did without much effort to an environment (BCG) where I was decidedly not killing it. Nevertheless, I’m sure with time and experience I’ll be able to get more comfortable at the job. I’ll give myself a C for “average”, given that I’m not likely doing that much worse or better than most people would have in my situation.

4. Do fun and interesting things - I did a decent job of continuing to cook throughout college, and my summer trip to Europe was quite awesome. While it doesn’t feel like I’ve done much in the way of “new” things since I started my job - most of my time at this stage is working, hanging out, eating out, or going out - reading through the highlights below indicate that I’m not fully giving myself credit for the experiences that I’ve had. I’d give myself a B+ on this front, only because of the unrealistic expectations around being able to try things while working.

5. Being a good person - again, I don’t really know how to measure this. I’d like to think that I’m improving overall (especially as a result of my relationship), and I was finally able to really start donating larger amounts of money as a result of having steady income from a job. I’ll excuse myself from a grade here, if only because I think it’s very difficult to grade your own behavior.

Highlights from 2021

• I started off the year with a road trip to White Sands, Guadalupe Peak, Carlsbad Caverns, and Big Bend. We hiked along Big Bend’s Chisos Mountains Trails, and the view from the South Rim was incredible.

• My college roommates and I got really, really efficient at meal prepping, and we ended up getting some really solid options in our Notion page that we used to track recipes.

• The Texas Freeze happened, which was very fun for the first couple of days until it wasn’t. This was another instance of the world around me going to hell while I was doing fine (not that I’m complaining, but it is a weird feeling).

• I started playing basketball with a group of guys on Fridays, which morphed into a social group that was one of the highlights of my last semester in college.

• I went camping at San Angelo State Park over Spring Break. I won’t elaborate on details, but the overall trip was super enjoyable.

• My roommates and I adopted a dog, Omega - a chocolate lab + golden retriever mix that melted our hearts. We took him for a few surgeries, and he ended up getting adopted right on time before we got kicked out of our apartment…

• The apartment complex that I was in decided to perform renovations in the middle of the year, so I ended up staying in a hotel for two weeks as our apartment got torn apart. We ended up getting a lawyer for the mass action lawsuit, and haven’t heard back much.

• I went and saw Dave Chapelle perform live in Austin, which turned out to be his now famous/infamous The Closer special. It was worth every penny (despite the ticket being hundreds of dollars).

• I presented my thesis, wrapped up the Senior Design Project (not that I really did that much for this), and graduated from UT with my three degrees (which I do not regret), and did not jump in the fountain (which I do regret). Thanks to UT for giving me (so far) the best five years of my life. Hook ‘em, horns!

• Some buddies and I went to Spain, France, and Switzerland for our graduation trip. We hit up Andalusia, Madrid, the Basque region, Barcelona, Marseille, Geneva, Interlaken, and Paris - all for surprisingly cheap. I discovered doughnut peaches, phenomenal olive oil, the incredible Sagrada Familia, the beautiful Calanques, a very lovely Parisian cafe with a lovely grandmother behind it, and jazz clubs.

• I started working, and was able to do a cooking class, attend an Astros game, take a Barry’s Bootcamp class (too loud, though I did a few Peloton bootcamp sessions after that), show up to the back half of the Greek festival, and “organize” (text people a time and place to meet) a couple other events that were decent fun.

• For the Labor Day weekend, I went with my girlfriend to Chicago, which was an absolute blast to see the city that I loved so much (if you haven’t been, I strongly believe that it’s the best city to be in during the summer).

• I attended a wonderful Glass Animals concert that I thought was pretty incredible.

• I made several trips out to SF to visit my girlfriend, during which I hiked around Lands End, visited the Japanese Tea Garden, ran the back half of the SF Marathon, hiked around Taylor State Park in Marin, drove the Pacific Coast Highway, and explored a new city (which I do think is somewhat overrated).

• I flew to Dallas for a half week for a work event, during which I saw a new side of corporate America’s excess. No but doesn’t bring just the food for catering, they also bring the chef.

• The BCG A’s did a retreat out to Austin, which was amazing. It’s interesting to be back at the ol’ stomping grounds for a weekend.

• I finished off my first case for work, which I found less than spectacular. I stated my second case for work, which I found exciting, fun, and all of the things that they tell you during the recruiting session.

• I traveled to Colorado Springs with my parents for a few days and ate amazing burgers and hiked around some amazing places. We drove to the top of Pike’s Peak! Afterwards, I went skiing at Copper Mountain (phenomenal, and by far better than Brock) and remembered (as I do every year) that I enjoy skiing.

how i’ll grow in 2022

1. Physically, I’d like to add a bit of muscle mass on - I’ve targeted 180 pounds (currently, I’m about 160), though I’d like the gains to be muscle. I probably ought to get an accurate lab measurement of body fat percentage both now and toward the end of the year for curiosity’s sake. Beyond that, I’d also like to try and hit 7,000 minutes that year on Peloton - just under 20 minutes on average per day, which sounds completely doable even with a work schedule.

2. Socially, I’d like to further develop my social life in Houston - both in terms of the social circle I have with my coworkers, and also in terms of a non-work circle of friends. I’ll also want to invest time into my relationship, so hopefully I’ll be able to see my girlfriend about once a month.

3. Professionally, I want to get “good” at my job, which mostly means getting comfortable. I’m not sure where it’ll take me, but my hope is that I’ll (fairly) soon I’ll be able to start having more say in what projects that I work on.

4. Continue to focus on being a good person, and overall ensuring that what I give to the world is in excess of what I take.

5. I want to make sure that I don’t lose my love for the outdoors - this is tougher now that I’m working instead of being in college, and it’s tougher still since I live in Houston. Nonetheless, I’d like to try and make sure that I make time this year for going outside and camping and hiking every now and then.

things to ponder

• Once I reach my one-year mark at BCG, several options (including transferring offices!) are on the table. What I will choose to do then will likely will a very important decision, so it’s one that I should ensure I’ve made carefully.

20%

The first time I heard my internship salary at Akuna Capital, I literally couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It was this absolutely crazy number that I just couldn’t comprehend at the time - they were going to pay a 20-year old how much? Later, I got an email from HR asking for a good time to call - I thought they were going to fire me before I started; it turns out they had “updated” the salary to be 25% higher than before. I wasn’t sure what to make of that, but I decided that I wasn’t going to do anything good with the money, so I might as well give some of it away. I’ll never forget the first chunk - I was eating at Eleven City Diner when I noticed that they were raising money to go to Malawi to build schools; I left $100. The waiter was just floored, and told me how he was involved with it and how grateful he was, and here’s some candy for you to take - it’s on us.

Since then, I’ve given 20% of my salary to charity, a practice I wanted to more-or-less commit myself to by making it public (granted, on a blog that attracts dozens of visitors per week. Dozens!) That wasn’t so much cash in the early days, when all of my donations were coming from internship salaries; now that I’ve started my full-time job out of college it’s a fair chunk of change. Had I given the money directly to the charity myself, I’d choose to itemize my deductions come tax season (though I try to some extent to funnel my donations through others that have the ability to match donations through their employer).

Where I donate money to has changed quite a bit from when I started. I’m a strong believer today in effective altruism; most of my donations go to GiveWell for them to allocate as they see fit between insecticide-treated bed nets, vitamin A supplements, cash incentives for childhood vaccines, deworming initiatives, or just direct cash transfers. I’m not fully sure how much my 20% rule has driven me toward Effective Altruism - would I have stumbled upon that organically and subscribed to those ideologies without my own little pledge? In any case, I definitely want my money to have an impact; I imagine my cash is able to save a few lives every year or improve the quality of life for people whom I’m likely to never once meet.

The craziest thing for me is how little I notice it. It feels a lot like saving for retirement: if you take the money “off the top” and just pretend like you never had it to begin with, it’s not all that difficult to do. It sounds like a lot of money to donate - 20% of salary (my commitment is pre-tax, not take-home) - but it’s not something I’ve really felt affect my life day-to-day. Even with taxes, funding my retirement (quite aggressively), and this secular tithe, I’m continuing to spend basically the same amount to run my life as I did during college. It doesn’t feel like I’m missing out on anything. I still did my month-long Europe trip after graduation, I still see my long-distance girlfriend more-or-less once a month, I still have my metal credit card (admittedly, that pays for itself, but still).

I sometimes ask myself if 20% is enough; I could easily pack my lunch instead of buying a $12 salad and donate the difference; I could bike more to work, not pay $6 in parking, and donate the difference; I could choose to stop buying clothes from Lululemon and donate the cash I would have spent. It’s an incredibly asymmetric choice: $1 for me is nothing, and yet $1 is the cost to deworm a child. Perhaps I’ll adjust the 20% upwards in the future — for now, I’ll not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Fulfilling Potential

I wasn’t exactly sure what to call this, but this morning at work I had a particular scene from Good Will Hunting flash through my mind, where Will and Chuckie are finishing up a day’s work. It’s really solid (both the scene and the movie as a whole), and one of those things I’ve mentally catalogued in “Movies I want my kids to watch”

I’ve been gifted throughout my life so far with a hand most people haven’t gotten to play. There are times are I want to just call it in - find some easy, decently-paying job and retire early to just mess around and do whatever. But I don’t think that’s fair - being dealt the cards that I’ve received comes with a moral obligation (or, so I feel) to use it for the betterment of the world. I don’t have to — no one really gets much of a say on what I do with my life besides myself — but it is, in a sense, the “right” thing to do.

Just something that I think about as I go into work. I may not like every aspect of it, but I do owe it to those who have dealt me pocket aces to get the most out of it.

An Ode to the Ford Focus

When I started my senior year of high school, my dad got his Tesla Model S and I received his old car, a white 2012 Ford Focus. I’ve had it for roughly 6 years now, during which I’ve probably driven around 70,000 miles or so in it.

Most people view cars as an appliance to get them from A to B - usually, a tool used for the daily commute, something to handle going to work or moving kids around, hauling groceries, transporting stuff. For some, cars can showcase your success (or your financial illiteracy and the surprising/alarming ease with which you can get a 84 month loan), though I must note that by and large, rappers do not talk very much about the Ford Focus [1]. Cars are often romanticized as a key to freedom - the road trip, of course, is an integral part of American culture, something that only grew more popular during the COVID pandemic. My car is a tool that I’ve used well over the years - I’ve driven to school/work and back home, I’ve gone on several HEB runs where I stuffed the trunk, I’ve traversed Oil Country to reach White Sands and Caprock Canyons, and traversed cities for food and fun.

To be clear, I have basically the nicest version that one could have of a Ford Focus. It’s Titanium trim with a few goodies, which means I have a car from 2012 that can parallel park itself (I will probably never buy a car that doesn’t have front and rear parking sensors). The seats are easy to wipe down and vacuum dog hair off of, Bluetooth + a car mount is basically all I actually need for infotainment. It gets decent gas mileage and has mostly been trouble-free: the transmission problems that seem to have plagued the third generation Focus have killed my resale value, but not my faith it that can get me where I need to go. It also drives like a charm — seriously, it drives really well - it’s impressive how much fun you can have driving this thing around. It’s nice and small, and it handles confidently. Car and Driver included it in their 10Best list for 2012 and 2013 for a reason.

Perhaps the most enjoyable thing about owning my car over the years is the feeling I get of owning something that is mine. Granted, from a legal standpoint, it’s still in my father’s name, and I didn’t actually ever pay him for it. But when it comes to doing even basic maintenance, you start to feel some pride and joy from learning how everything functions, from doing the work yourself and getting a few grease stains and “oh shit” moments when you jack up the car in the wrong place.

Perhaps you think that this post is dumb, or naive. This kid likes a Focus? How cute. Perhaps it’s more Who cares about cars? They’re just four wheels and a box. But I’ve loved my car, and I’ve loved the freedom it brought me, and I’ve taken pride over the years in keeping it well.

New Mexico is quite the empty landscape.

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[1] There actually was a song that I listened to several times with the lyrics “backseat of the Focus”, which did throw me a bit off guard.

Thank God I was Born a Texas Longhorn

I actually grew up in an Aggie household. Not that my mom went to A&M — but my dad did (he actually had some leadership position associated with the bonfire, which led to his favorite green helmet), and my mom didn’t really derive her identity from her college. Nonetheless, I remember checking out colleges for the first time; UT seemed beneath me at the time (I was far more cocky in high school than I am now, which really should say something). I heard about BHP and Plan II from a family friend that worked in finance; he seemed to hype up Plan II more. I remember going to info sessions for BHP and thinking that something seemed off; how could their stats be so high? Wasn’t it just Texas? (Not that stats and average class rank or SAT score are the only thing that matter. But at the time it was what I valued.)

I remember botching the BHP interviewer’s gender — twice. I remember getting the call from Paul while I was walking Sasha around the block, and probably reacting like it wasn’t a big deal. I remember getting rejected from most other places, and I remember choosing UT over Rice just because asking my parents to pay an extra $100k or so didn’t seem right (incredible levels of privilege that I will likely never appreciate, thanks Dad and Mom).

I remember bits of pieces of the first year — the first football game against Notre Dame where I sold my ticket for $120 and lied about being 21 at some random alum’s tailgate to get a singular beer. I remember going to Austin’s Pizza afterwards to celebrate. I remember Leadership Kickoff where I met Collin and walked across a tightrope, and later that night rapped to Bonfire by Childish Gambino. I remember meeting the MISquad and going to South Congress via bus. I remember meeting the Turing kids during a late night in the Quad and doing attention-grabbing things. I remember walking downstairs over to 231 and knocking on the door whenever I felt like hanging out with Molly and Hannah.

I remember breaking into the stadium and stealing a couple of beers from Daddy Fenves. I remember Roundup with Julia. I remember bunking beds with Neil to get some more space, and being a dick about throwing away Greek yogurt cups in the trash can. I remember discovering that EE was hard, which was why I loved it so much; the joys of doing great on exams where you got an 80; the idiocy of thinking that I could do circuits homework while inebriated.

I remember moving off campus with Collin and David, about feeling lonely and somewhat disconnected from my friends that had moved into another apartment building. I remember joining Convergent because they apparently had sick parties, and realizing that no one knew what was going on. I remember teaching options lectures to kids not yet in UCF, and acting a bit like Robinhood in the process.

I remember very little from senior year, though at some point I recall meeting some girl in EE (yes, one of the few) during a lab checkout for Digital Logic Design. I remember grabbing lunch with Madison in the EER as the same girl walked past us, and after Madison left, deciding to just say fuck it. I pulled up a chair and talked with her for an hour or so. I remember COVID starting to be talked about, and Nate and I buying a few extra cans of chili to ride out the wave. I remember mimosas on the EER lawn to celebrate midterms; I remember Rick and Morty and Gumbo nights in 321. I remember a very long road trip with my friends that had just graduated. I remember getting that opportunity because of COVID. I remember the girl’s visit to Austin to pack up her things.

I remember Zoom classes, but I also remember basketball on Fridays and making new friends. I remember another great roommate and learning how to cook. I remember making it official and introducing her to my parents. I remember the procrastination and the joys of writing a thesis as well as the incredible deal I got for my senior design project. I remember being kicked out of my apartment for renovations and eating out Central Market daily for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

All of this is off the top of my head. There’s more memories too, locked away in photos and videos, waiting to be rediscovered.

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College has been five years of truly nothing but the best. I’m lucky to say that — not everyone can. But I feel like I’ve enjoyed every single second of it, and I feel confident that I’ve grown throughout the process. I received a few particularly touching keepsakes (both physical and digital) from a few incredibly thoughtful friends of mine - perhaps it’s Lollipop moments for both of us.

I was walking with my girlfriend the other day after graduation, and I recall telling her about how I’m in the intermezzo. I’ve spent five years with a very clear goal in mind - graduate - and my next big life chapter (working) starts in exactly two months. During that time, I don’t really have the same level of motivation and purpose and order to my life direction that I’ve had for the greater portion of my life so far — and this means that I’ll likely turn to Autopilot to determine how I spend my time. Sure, I’ll likely go to Europe, and likely move back to Houston. I’ll also read and workout and cook and eat and spend time with friends. But choosing who to spend time with - that’s something that requires intentionality behind it.

If you just graduated, then congratulations. Here’s something that I found quite nice to read. Onwards!

2020 in Review

The weirdest thing about 2020 is that it’s personally been an exceptionally good year, despite the fact that 2020 sucked for most people. Two major themes (the racial equality movement and COVID-19) dominated the story of this year, and yet my day-to-day didn’t feel that different. Sure, I added one more thing to my list of things to carry with me everywhere, and my calendar was far less packed than normal, but this year has largely been the same for the big-picture stuff: I traveled, I sent time with friends, I grew. I sometimes wonder if I “deserve” to have enjoyed it as much as I did. Ultimately, I think that more happiness can’t be a bad thing. Much like last year, I combed through Google Photos, Google Calendar, and my conversations lists to jog as many memories as I could about the past 12 months.

progress on 2020 goals

1. Becoming an athlete: I did run a marathon this year, though I didn’t set a Boston qualifying time (nor did I even register for the event). I don’t think Boston is nearly that important anymore, nor did I really stick to doing yoga on rest days. It turns out that I really need to sweat to mentally count a workout. I heavily abused my Peloton subscription, though: I logged 8,937 minutes of working out on Peloton, and the actual number of workout minutes is higher (since I didn’t start running on the platform until later in the year). Overall, I’m happy with the progress I made toward my physical health.

2. Monthly atomic changes: I completely neglected paying active attention to this, though I did end up cooking much more with my roommate (I keep on telling myself to post more to the food section of my website).

3. Relationships with people: I did a solid job with maintaining a social life, despite being a fifth-year student and the pandemic. I was actually still able to see many of my friends that graduated since they stayed in Austin with work-from-home. Setting up a routine of seeing a specific group of people on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays also really helped me keep in touch with people that mattered. Things have also been good on the dating front, which has honestly been the largest source of happiness throughout 2020.

4. Learning new things: The academic side of things went well this year, though I don’t really think that I fully earned the grades I received: online school is much easier to fall behind with, and professors have been much more lenient with grading these past two semesters. Still, 2020 saw some great classes (Positive Psychology and Nutritional Biochemistry especially) that I really got a lot out of. While I didn’t read as many books as I had hoped to, my girlfriend has a rare trait of being unusually curious in learning about many things, and her attitude of enjoying learning about cool things has definitely rubbed off on me.

5. Being a good person: I’m not sure if there’s anything that you could point to as evidence of how good of a person I was, but I’d like to think that I continued doing at least a decent job.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM 2020

• I did my first road trip with two friends from EE over to White Sands. We missed Carlsbad on the way back, but did mess around with snow for a bit. West Texas isn’t a particularly inviting landscape.

• I visited Deep Eddy with the seniors in Convergent, which was an absolute blast. I got absolutely blasted. I also participated in an IM co-ed dodgeball tournament with Convergent, which was fun (even if we aren’t champions). Convergent parties were also a blast.

• Me and my group partners started living it up during the weekly data science TA sessions, and I gained a new appreciation for tuna+mayo crackers and white wine.

• I ran a marathon without proper training in 3:21:01. I’m pretty proud of myself for that, though I don’t think I’ll be doing it again. 15 miles is probably a solid upper limit for me moving forward.

• I went hiking a ton, especially as the pandemic ramped up in the US, and debated a Fermi problem on the number of children conceived in the Greenbelt. Palmetto State Park and McKinney Falls are worth a visit.

• I watched The Newsroom, which I’d highly recommend. Aaron Sorkin is quite the storyteller.

• Nightly Facetimes with my then-future-girlfriend really helped to pass the time during a pandemic. A visit in May as she came to pack up her deserted apartment was a great three days after a few months of not seeing her.

• My friends graduated, and Brené Brown gave an excellent commencement address. I had a great night.

• One of my former roommates got married, and I’ve known the two since basically my first day in college. I’m super honored to have been in their wedding, and for better or worse gave a tipsy toast (that I guess went well).

• I road tripped with some friends who graduated. We hit up Taos and Wheeler Peak, Breckenridge and McCullough Gulch, Moab and Arches/Canyonlands National Park, Capitol Reef National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Zion National Park and The Narrows, the Grand Canyon, and White Sands (again). A really great trip.

• I semi-volunteered with ReadWorks for my internship. Looking back, I probably could have done more with them, though in the end I’m glad that I did that and I feel like they also got some mileage out of me.

• I spent a solid chunk of the summer with my roommate, which was an absolute blast of a time. Cleaning up and moving was a Herculean effort, and I’m so glad to have done it with him. Two straight days of cleaning and being kicked out at 6am will never be forgotten.

• My parents moved into a new home, which Sasha seems to be mostly enjoying.

• Did quite a few things with my then-soon-to-be-girlfriend around Austin: picnicked at Auditorium Shores, visited the Domain and tried cooking sausages, picnicked in Mueller, cooked a few meals and ate around (with varying reviews), watched the bats.

• Began cooking with my roommate: most casseroles are far too dairy-heavy, but pot roast is amazing, and Beth’s recipes are usually quite reliable. Pastalaya, the sweet potato chorizo skillet, the chimichurri rice, and the Greek turkey and rice dishes were all hits. Teriyaki chicken and rice… not as much.

• Made it official with my now-girlfriend just before she left for Thanksgiving.

• Struggled through a rough left few weeks of my final hard semester, though I made it through with the help of the Gantt chart. Our senior design project is going quite well so far and my thesis is looking interesting (though I need to write more).

• Visited Denver and Breckenridge for a family ski trip, which I enjoyed much more than I expected I would.

HOW I’LL GROW IN 2021

1. Continue being active. Crazy feats of endurance aren’t as important to me; what’s more important is the day-to-day activity that keeps me happy and healthy. Putting on some muscle would be great, though I’m more concerned about the process.

2. Continue to grow relationships with people. This means not only growing the relationships that already exist (which first requires thinking about which relationships from college I want to maintain moving forward), but only fostering new ones when I start my first full-time job in Houston.

3. Professionally, I want to start off my job on the right foot, and I want to figure out what routine works well for me after I do start. Will I be flying to visit others every other week? Once a month? How will I work best – what’s a solid daily schedule?

4. Do fun and interesting things. Perhaps it’s cooking, reading, or learning new things. In any case, my goal is to find “productive” ways to fill the new times that I’ll have. My last semester of college should be relatively easy (I’m only taking 10 hours), and time outside of work is theoretically all mine. How I spend that time will matter, and I want it to be good.

5. Once again, being a good person is still important, and so it’s still on the list.

THINGS TO PONDER

1. How will I balance maintaining friendships with making new ones? It’s been quite a while since I last started my social life from square one, and meeting new people seems to be more difficult after college. I don’t want my life in Houston to be lonely, nor do I want to never see my friends that are moving to other cities far from me.

Charities, Part II

Well over a year ago, I wrote my first blog post about charity, where I explained some of the (many) factors that I looked into when considering how to allocate my donation dollars. I promised to write two more posts on my favorite charities and explain why I liked them so much - and those posts never materialized (my two favorite, at the time, were ReadWorks [links here and here] and The Citizens Foundation [links here, here, and here]). Whoops!

This post isn’t about ReadWorks or TCF. It’s actually about the other charities; the other charitable acts that we do. In short: you suck at donating. I recently fell down the effectively altruism rabbit hole - this post isn’t about that. The EA community seems to focus on a few things that I don’t fully agree with, but the basic idea that you should give your resources (time and money) where it helps the most is one that everyone should easily be on board with. If I gave you a magic wand and said that waving one would cure cancer for 10 people and waving the other would cure cancer for 20; you’d pick the latter (or, you should wave both, and cure disease for 30 people). Everyone’s on board.

But the issue is that we routinely fail at identifying causes that are actually important and/or helpful. Availability/recency bias is largely to blame; I’m not saying I’m any better. But awareness is the first of 12 steps; perhaps I’ll discover something wonderful out of all of this.

people’s donations are influenced by what’s hot

George Floyd died on May 25, 2020. Over the course of the days and weeks that followed, people started becoming very active in supporting certain types of charities - all of them targeted at helping Black people. This is not a bad thing per se - as I’ve written about before, there exists clear examples of race effects in American society (even after accounting for wealth/income). But what was different about society for Black people on May 25th as opposed to May 24th? It’s not like America became more discriminatory over the course of those 8 minutes and 46 seconds. But all of a sudden, people were ready to donate to BLM or related causes overnight. Anecdotally, plenty of acquaintances at tech companies decided to use their company match to help double other people’s donations. LinkedIn was seemingly full of companies announcing partnerships and donations to organizations that were designed to help Black students get a job/afford college/etc. Companies were actually donating or announcing donations to organizations.

Maybe it’s the case that George Floyd’s death and the ensuing protests resulted in people legitimately rethinking how to best give their money. I’m sure that there’s a not-insignificant group of people that legitimately believe that racial justice is the most pressing issue today, that all of their excess time and money and effort should go to fighting for equity. But (at the risk of being cynical) I just don’t believe that the majority of people fall into that category. My LinkedIn feed is now back to where it was before May 2020: students and companies trying to hype themselves up (I’m so grateful for my offer! We’re looking for talented students!). I don’t hear about people working in Big Tech trying to help other people match their donations to charities supporting Black people.

The “hot” charity cause comes and goes. A few months ago, it was racial justice (it still is, to a certain extent). A few years ago, it was ALS (and people dumping buckets of ice on their heads). If a cause is hot, that doesn’t mean it’s bad - ALS and racial justice are objectively issues that demand solutions. But don’t just go chasing the shiny new cause. Availability bias (well, it’s really the recency bias that I’m discussing here) can distract you from the actually important thing.

people want to “feel a connection” to charity

The other side of availability bias is geographic closeness. I’ve often heard the sentiment that people want to be able to “feel a connection” to where there money is going; I don’t think that this is intrinsically bad. I want to be able to see photos of the organization in action or to hear stories of those who have benefitted to make sure that my money is being actually used to help people (or animals. Whatever floats your boat.) I’ve also heard (and rightly so!) that feeling a connection to the charity makes donors feel better about their decision, and makes them more likely to donate (whether in general or to that charity) in the future. I don’t have data to back that up, but it seems reasonable and intuitive enough.

I don’t like the idea of needing to feel a connection when I think of how limited geographically that connection often is. I’m lucky to have traveled to many parts of the world; I know for a fact just how much worse people in poorer nations have it (and how much further a dollar can go there). Here’s the short version of my point: if “feeling a connection” means somehow relating to the charitable cause, you’re likely to pass up organizations and efforts that are more worthy of your help that are outside your zone of familiarity. Malaria nets and energy poverty and deworming initatives are completely unknown to a vast majority of Americans; that doesn’t make them any less real.

unsexy charities need your money too

I reached out to one of the Googlers that had offered to help match donations to BLM-related causes, and I asked about whether I could get my donation to an educational nonprofit matched. At that time, he wasn’t focused on that. Another friend who works at Bloomberg also had a matching opportunity, but for a list of charities decided by the company. I asked about 8 or so different charities - none of them on the list.

There are charities out there that are “unsexy”, in the sense that they won’t be a hot trend. They aren’t remotely operating in North America, so it’s unlikely that you’ll hear of them in the first place. Organizations that fight malaria by providing nets or offering preventative medications aren’t sexy. Organizations that provide Vitamin A supplements or operate deworming initiatives aren’t sexy. But they work on problems that are just as real as racial justice and ALS, often without widespread support.

If you’re looking for unsexy charities, I’d highly recommend starting off with GiveWell’s shortlist, or using Charity Navigator to do research.

what i struggle with

While I won’t commit myself to having my very next post be about nonprofits, I can say that I’d certainly expect to return to this topic fairly often. I still don’t know how to find unsexy charities - right now, I’m just outsourcing the work to GiveWell. When I do choose to do my own research, I often find myself defaulting to supporting education in the US - because it’s a cause that resonates with me. But doesn’t that sound hypocritical?

how to: not suck at donating

Finally, a few last points.

1. You can’t just give money and call it a day. Money is helpful, but actions matter, too.

2. You can’t just donate post a black square and end racism, not will dumping solid water on your head cure ALS. Don’t follow the current when it comes to what’s popular.

3. This takes effort.

4. Don’t donate for yourself - the purpose of donating money isn’t to make you feel good about yourself. It’s to make the world a better place; to give to those who are in a worse situation than you.

Serendipity, or What You Learn Studying Liberal Arts

This is Part III to an unplanned series of posts where I talked about what I actually learned as a result of studying different things in college (you can find Part I: Engineering, here, and Part II: Business, here).

I struggled for a long time to write this, which perhaps is an interesting statement in and of itself. Did I not really get anything out of my liberal arts degree? Indeed, my engineering education had taught me how to analyze a circuit to find the current flowing through a particular branch, or how to build an XGBoost model for a classification task. My business degree had taught me that debits go on the left side and credits on the right side for a balance sheet. I learned that the NPV of a $1 perpetuity with growth rate g and discount rate r was 1/(r-g). These things were clearly more applicable, right? (They weren’t. The real, worthwhile things I learned were how to tackle hard and novel things through engineering and how to drive long-term impact through business.)

But still, it may feel strange to someone that majors in liberal arts and a more “hard” major (e.g. STEM, though there are other possibilities beyond STEM) to contemplate what they’ve learned from their liberal arts degree. For me, I’ve taken a year of world literature and a year of philosophy courses, and I honestly can’t say that I think I got anything out of them, beyond a further appreciation for SparkNotes. My liberal arts degree has forced me to take some of the most boring classes in my college career, some of which I consider a complete waste of time. I took an economics class where I realized I had either went on my phone or fell asleep at least once every class.

And yet, my liberal arts degree has forced me into discovering some of the most interesting classes in my college career. I took a couple of psychology classes that I truly feel have reshaped my approach to life; my freshman year I took a civic engagement class that exposed me to some incredibly interesting people. I’m currently taking a nutrition class that I’m finding incredibly relevant to my day-to-day life (funny enough, the course number is NTR 365).

I’ve realized that the value of my liberal arts degree isn’t the liberal arts classes as much as the liberal arts education. I don’t think I’d personally find much value in studying French literature or Philosophy or XYZ studies. I didn’t expect to find that much value in an intro psychology class either - I had merely assumed that I’d be memorizing diagrams of the brain and a litany of symptoms for any number of the terrible things listed in the DSM-5. And yet, I feel so thankful for the fact that I was forced into taking some of the most amazing classes in my college experience. Taking classes in nutrition and psychology is not an automatic thing for a business/engineering major; I’m glad I was forced into it.

We can’t control luck, at least as far as whether we get good luck or bad. What we do control, however, are the number of times we roll the dice. Sure, any particular attempt at asking someone out or applying for a job has a certain probability of a yes or a no, and those odds might not be in our favor all of the time. But the only way to end up successful in those pursuits is to put ourselves in the way of good luck. Taking classes from all over the university has resulted in some strikeouts and some home runs - at the end of the day, it’s the home runs that you’ll remember. Make your own luck!