i dropped os 🎉 by Joonho K. '20

last thursday night was pretty stressful, trying to finish the operating systems lab with the precious few late hours left that i’d had — i’d even started the lab early this semester, even gone to office hours.

it wasn’t enough, which is, unfortunately, a common occurrence at MIT. i’d done perhaps 70% of the lab at this point, but due to the way this lab was graded, i was still passing 0% of the tests. i needed to sleep, and i had an essay i’d barely started that was due at 5pm. my friend casey was coming to boston tomorrow for the long weekend.

i felt truly hopeless in the academic sense. it was a frustration that was inevitable, concentrating itself inside the depths of my heart, slowly growing as the night went on until i snapped, slammed my laptop shut, and went to bed, emotionally spent.

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the long weekend was the best part of the semester so far. it did wonders for my mood, and it was a chance to de-stress. i decided to put nothing on my gcal. i spent most of it with casey, but also with others — social circles collided to produce strange venn diagrams. it was a mix of places both new and familiar — the mfa, chinatown, boston commons, the north side, udon at yume, the kero kero bonito concert.⁠01 THIS WAS SO GODDAMN GOOD. you don't usually think of kkb songs as being high energy, but both kkb and the crowd were hype. 10/10 would hear 90% of the venue shout along to flamingo again.

near the start of the long weekend, i asked myself what i really wanted out of taking operating systems. by tuesday, i knew i wanted to drop it,⁠02 well, switch it to listener, which is functionally the same and so i did. another one bites the dust, my friend jynnie told me — i’m the third senior on our hall to drop OS this semester.

so now, i’m taking four hass classes⁠03 i'll probably elaborate on them in a future post and no technicals, which has honestly been amazing. content-wise, this has been the best semester at MIT. if i could do MIT over again, i think i would have been a hass major and a 6-3 minor (but i still would have done software).

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i’m going to london this weekend! :3⁠04 part 1 of 2 for traveling this semester it was initially planned on a whim with jynnie, but a bunch of 2E alums are coming as well! i’ve never been to the UK — i’ll try to take lots of pictures. even though i’ll be a little pressed for time for my classes next week, i’m hoping this trip will be worth it~