Fresh Start: Reflection on First-Semester at Columbia

Like the rest of my fellow School Of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS) peers, I dreaded finals week, but after this whirlwind week, I already miss the routine of college life.

In fact, creating this blog was my form of finals procrastination (lol)

Finishing this piece after my finals are over gives me time to reflect on my first semester as a whole and how many amazing things have happened in the last 4 months:

From being the First-Year Representative of the Black Student Organization @Columbia and hosting events like Friendsgiving, to joining ColorStack, a national community of Black CS students and graduates, and exploring internship/fellowship opportunities.

Spontaneously joining a Hackathon with an incredible team and placing 3rd Overall!

Attending my first Columbia Homecoming Game, despite the loss, we ended up as Ivy champions!

Returning to Jersey for rehearsals and an amazing performance with the New Jersey Wind Symphony and Guest Performer Chad Smith!

Going to Broadway and seeing McNeal ft. Robert Downey Jr.

Performing Tchaikovsky Symphony #4 with the Columbia University Orchestra and Danzon° 2 with the Columbia University Wind Symphony.

I’m a bit bummed that first semester is over. I had a blast hanging out in Butler Library, Carmen Basement, and JJ’s with friends, meeting so many talented and driven people, learning from incredible professors like my University Writing teacher Dr. Jessica Campbell, whose class reignited my passion for writing, performing with new groups, and joining awesome clubs.

I’m excited to share my journey as an African American CS student at Columbia University on this blog. I hope it’ll give you a glimpse into the real world of a student like me.

To kick things off, I wanted to share something cool I found today. 

Tech Update #1

For my first piece of tech coverage on this blog, I will share a fun little addition to the Apple Ecosystem. With the recent addition of Apple Intelligence to Apple Silicon Macs, new gen-iPhones and iPads, come a slew of cool AI features.

The feature I found most exciting was a new image generator called Image Playground. With it you can prompt the AI to generate images similar to Open AI's Dalle-E.

It's really cool to see AI coming locally to Apple devices promising enhanced security and capabilities!

Here's a image I generated in Image Playground: