Two degrees, a student branch
to run, and clients who
do not care about either.

The two halves pull in useful directions. Coursework gives me the theory — the linear algebra under a model, the complexity analysis behind a query plan. Client work gives me the part coursework cannot: a deadline that belongs to somebody else, a constraint I did not choose, and the discipline of building something that has to keep working after I stop looking at it.

Running the IEEE student branch taught me the thing I was least prepared for, which is that most engineering problems are actually coordination problems. Sixteen months as chairperson, and the hardest parts were never technical.

What I am chasing is not complicated. I want to be genuinely good at this — good enough that the work speaks before I do. That takes a long time and a lot of unglamorous hours, and I am somewhere in the middle of them.