Have you ever sat for a moment after you shut down an engine at the end of a long journey? Sometimes you’ll hear the crackling of the exhaust manifolds, possibly some turbines spooling down depending on what you’re sitting in. Eventually silence consumes all the space in the cabin and you realize for the first time how much noise there was around you. Throughout the journey, you didn’t notice how overbearing the rumbling of the tires was, the constant droning of the engine, or the rush of atmosphere as it slid by you. On their own or in short intervals, they may not seem like a lot, but after hours of exposure, the silence that follows presses against the drums in your ears — its own kind of loud.
Handing in that last final exam felt just like that. After years of intense study with schedules that grew ever more busy, constricted by deadlines, I can finally say that I did it! My computer engineering degree is done, convocation is just around the corner, and I genuinely cannot wait for what comes next.
I feel like I learned more in these last few years than I had anywhere, or at any point before. I’m not strictly speaking about academics, but as a sum of my parts, as a student, a person, and an engineer (-ing graduate hehe). I think that my greatest accomplishment is that I’ve learned how my thought process works best, and how I can set myself up for success. I shaped, modelled, and combined systems together into a unified personal system — an explanation of which commands its own time to document.
This really was the most difficult ‘era’ of my life. It started with the decision to go back to school, the perilous balance between the never-ending study, the projects, the lab sessions, and the desire to sleep or have a personal life, all while remaining confident that I had made the right decision. Deep down I have always known that I am exactly where I need to be, but sometimes it was difficult to see through the mist. While I may not have had foglights on my head that I could just turn on, I did have a loving family to always cheer me on, and my brilliant wife, my azimuth, my lighthouse to guide me home and to protect me from straying off course. I am so grateful, for I absolutely could not have done any of this without the strength they all gave me. Thank you for believing in me — because of you, I am proud of where I came from, and elated for where I am going.