2022, Hopes and Goals and Dreams

Part One: About 2021#

2021 was an interesting year — one of massive growth, personally and professionally. If there was any theme to my 2021, I’d say it was self-improvement. Some really interesting things happened this year, over which I - worked at my first internship in a big tech company - ran my first independently run startup program - launched a Decal - TAed for the biggest class on Berkeley campus - finished my journey with Berkeley’s Gateway to Innovation program - helped run the world’s biggest collegiate hackathon - read 34 books in the year - built my fitness back up to being able to do pushups - took the hardest classes I could - traveled as much as the pandemic allowed for - developed more deep, meaningful relationships - carved more time out for fun, - and tried to be a braver person than I previously was.

Part Two: What’s Changing?#

There is one critical way in which I messed up, though. I didn’t make my goals for the year public. I left them drafted somewhere in the many apps I toggle between while writing. Here’s the problem: I can’t find that draft anymore.

Yes, I’m that friend that wrote her new year’s resolutions on a napkin, then forgot where I kept the napkin. It’s dreadfully embarassing.

Now that that shameful admission is out of the way, 2022 is shaping up to be a pivotal year. It will be what is probably my last year in college, my first year working full-time at a startup, my first year researching at university, and my last year pretending I’m of drinking age (shh).

While wondering what the biggest thing I wanted my 2022 to be about, I pondered a lot about how lonely 2020 was. I spent most of that year by myself in India, pulling night shifts for my classes and obligations that were halfway across the world. With the world tentatively opening back up, I think I want to stop learning alone and start asking for help more often.

I think it’s high time I make finding support for my passions a priority. 2022 is the year of finding communities for myself and what I enjoy doing.

Part Three: The Goals#

As such, here’s some goals I’m hoping to reach by the end of 2022. As much as is possible, I have attempted to keep these goals measurable, and quantised, such that my progress can be tracked through any point in the year.

1. I want to create a project that is used by other people this year.
   Whenever I work on a side-project or a hack, it’s either to learn something or to create something for my own use. This year, I want to push myself to create something that is useful to other poeple as well. This can be something as simple as a chrome extension or as complex as a social media platform. The implementation is not as important as the intent. You can view my projects here.

2. I want to publish a text-book this year.
   I’ve spent a majority of my college career teaching classes. I’ve taught CS61A, and helped start the Introduction to Full Stack Web Dev Decal, a student-run class that teaches students the ins and outs of web development. This year, I’m stepping back from both these intitiatives. As such, I want to formalize my teaching material into open-source digital textbooks. You can view my progress on the CS61A Textbook here.

3. I want to create 24 side-projects this year.
   Two for every month, this number may not seem pretty massive, but taking a project from idea to execution can be a deceptively long process. It doesn’t matter what the project is, as long as it takes substantial effort and learning to create, has a public-facing version to demo it, and isn’t left incomplete. You can track my progress here.

4. I want to bootstrap a community this year.
   I really enjoy communities, being a member of them, as well as leading them. I want to spend substantial time this year not only finding these spaces, but also creating them for others in potential spaces that might require such communities.

5. I want to read 52 books by the end of the year.
   I had this goal last year, and reached a respectable ³⁴⁄₅₂. This was out of laziness more so than anything else. I believe 52 is extremely achievable. You can track my progress here.

6. I want to meet 156 new people this year.
   That’s three new people a week — which is hopefully a very reasonable target. I will point out that “meeting people” is not the same thing as chatting with someone at a party. If you can’t talk about them for 5 minutes after the meeting, it doesn’t count.

7. I want to get good at a sport this year.
   I’ve never been able to really indulge in participating in a sport, despite having tried my hand at a wide variety. This year, I’d like to hunt down whatever I’d like to keep doing for the rest of my life — worthy candidates include basketball, squash, tennis, ice skating, and more! This goal is definitely more vague than the others, because I don’t know where this will take me yet! Let’s check back in a year to see where we land ;)

8. I want to travel to 10 different cities this year.
   Eventually, I’d love to be able to spend the entire year living in different cities — while I’m in college, that’s a bit unreasonable. Until then, I’ll settle for visiting places. Any place counts, as long as I stay there for more than 3 days, and the intent of the trip is to explore the city. You can track my progress on travel here.

9. I want to do 3 things that terrify me this year.
   I find that doing things I’m scared of is a sure-fire way to do something that I’ll eventually be proud of. I hope I’ll be able to chase my fears into taking some meaningful actions this year. Another one that is quite vague, but perhaps a good place to start is with my bucket list.

Part Four: Community and Courage#

As I mentioned above, this is the year I want to chase my passions with other people. That starts right here, with this list. If this is something you enjoyed reading, or perhaps took inspiration from, take a moment to drop me a line at hi@amks.me with your goals of the year.

Can be many, can be one, can be specific, can be vague. Doesn’t matter — send it anyway. It will make me feel a little less alone in my endeavors to do better, and hopefully it will make you feel a little more compelled to chase after them.

I, for one, am pretty excited to meet the 2023 version of me.

Part 5: Accountability#

Read my January updates.