top 10 (university) life hacks
hack-maxxing in university
In my notes app I’ve been collecting some of my favorite life hacks that I use in my day to day. I haven’t yet figured out if some of these are unethical or not but I think it’s worth sharing. I also keep seeing people put images at the start of their posts regardless of what it is, so here’s a photo of me in a forest. Something something about great artists stealing.
top 10 (canadian-university-coded) life hacks
Call the French line for quicker service at Canadian government offices and speak in English
Almost cancel your Audible subscription to get the $1/mo offer
Create multiple university email redirects to claim unlimited Amazon Prime trials
Go to co-working sessions – this is your sign
Don’t underestimate the power of smelling good (perfume tier list)
Use Apple private relay to get infinite random emails
Gift unusually useful things
You can override into any course
Ontario University libraries allow you to unlimited-ly renew books for 4-month periods
Ontario has a library system called Omni where you can get any book from any Ontario University
If you can, take OSAP interest-free loans, invest it, stay in school, and let inflation eat away at the value of the loan (not financial advice)
Take wigglegrams (or a selfie) with people to use as leverage to get their contact numbers
You can ask for anything
I am pretty sure I have more but these are the ones that come immediately to mind. I’d love to hear any other fun ways you’ve been able to take advantage of systems for yourself as a student, please share them!
a gap term summarized
I’ve been on a gap term for the past Winter and I’m extremely pleased with what I’ve accomplished over the last 4 months. I’ll also be gap-terming again in the Summer but in SF! This time with a more concrete understanding of what I want to work on, and who I want to work with. Gap terms are weird because it’s so easy to deviate from your original plan (albeit not a bad thing!) and still be able to grow in ways you wouldn’t have expected.
Projects
Worked on a ton of projects that I’ve been procrastinating on! Shenanigans include:
Making my hydroponic farm way bigger (eventually getting taken down)
Made wigglegrams.com after getting frustrated with existing 3D gif-making software
Built a CLI tool to convert any file type to another fully locally
Matchmaking, but your friends make your dating profile (resonant.love)
Socratica – tons of community building, open-sourcing software, and hosting symposiums!
Scotland yard simulator after losing to my friends playing the board game
Videos – fun stuff made with vintage camcorders
Currently working on LLM stuff for anti-trust lawyers and litigators
And a bunch more that I probably missed
Fun
Hosting dinners and making a ton of passion fruit pudding! – I secretly am looking to purchase a passion fruit orchard now (half-joking)
I met a ton of awesome people, made friends, and even some new best friends. Meeting new people is something I’ve not been super intentional about in the past, but I think it’s my biggest improvement in the last year!
Events – helped host design-a-thons, dance parties, and more. It’s ironic considering I had never been to a club event a year ago, nor even been to a hackathon.
Sports – did a bunch of intramurals, and lost in every single one of them. Oh well
Fumbles
I didn’t find the time to work out, and I was constantly so busy that I would forget to eat. I need to take care of myself better.
I wasn’t able to read as much as I wanted to, but I also think that’s okay.
I deviated from my gap term goals quite a bit. I didn’t learn the things that I initially wanted to learn, albeit I did learn way more other things. So maybe this is also okay? My solution to this is not having set deliverables on a term-basis, by on a 2-week sprint basis.
I’ve not honed in the direction of what I want to do yet. I am still experimenting.
I was constantly running after the next project, or symposium to run that I didn’t take the time to plan what I wanted to do over the next term. I feel the urge to throw myself into the deep end and be the dumbest person in the room. Be it by doing an internship, or starting a company.
I spent a lot of time meeting new people but didn’t invest as much time into my current friend group. This is something I will take more seriously, especially as we have fewer terms left to hang out.
Footnotes
I decided to write because Aileen told me she had no idea what was going on in my life. This is very true, I am not that great at sharing things, and I love cocooning. But I want to make a better effort at it.
My friend group (J Block) is doing amazing things, it feels like we’ve come so far from meeting each other in the first year on the CS26 discord server. Xavier is in BC planting trees, Simon is in New York, and everyone else is kinda doing their things. I don’t think I express enough how grateful I am for them, but they’re my rock.
I feel ridiculously lucky to be surrounded by the people I’m surrounded by. I’ve come to realize that my role models are my friends, and I want to take the best parts of them and bring them into my life. Plus, it’s so fun cheering for them and seeing them win.
I also turned 20 today. Feels weird.
Thanks for reading this! I’m in SF for the summer and would love to collaborate on projects, hmu if you’re in town!
WE NEED TO BULK
reading this with a smile and much love