background
I ended school last December and have been super grateful to be part of the workforce. The routine has been quite a 180. I have been really enjoying it, but I would also lie if I didn’t miss school and the mid-afternoon yapping random shenanigans.
What does it really mean to end things well? Well, for me, it means setting you up for the next phase well: career-wise, relationship-wise, or literally anything. To be able to live well and have good friends and j*b that can nourish you.
a little bit about the journey
Looking at my life on a micro-level, things seem fine and chill, but I couldn’t fathomably be more grateful for everything I have been given. My parents who have set me up so I can study abroad, no sickness whatsoever here, and many more things that could def go wrong.
I came to Canada back in 2021. I started my time first back at Langara. I was a very dirt-cheap dud who realized that Canadian currency is so so cooked compared to Indonesian ones, which is obvious, but I couldn’t help but compare everything and just be very very iffy with money.
I used to buy my own haircut tools so I could cut my own hair, limit my spending to as little as possible, and even only plan my eating out on Triple O’s Tuesdays as the burger was 5 bucks. I planned what courses I wanted to take for my entire Langara + SFU time by my first term at Langara, which is pretty insane, but I think it’s just the autism in me that likes to course plan (shoutout https://sfucourses.com lol).
go breadth out and depth in the friends
The first thing was realizing that making friends in univesity is an easy mode. Sure, you can still be more outgoing and join some events, but relationship just don’t happen as organically. Thus, it is the time for you to farm these relationships (in a genuine way).
Breadthmaxx!! go out to different kind of clubs!! Every friend exposes a different part of you that you never realize until you begin forming bonds with them. Marinating on this fact, it’s just super nice for you to have experienced what it’s like socializing in different groups and just really know yourself better, which part of you that is true and isn’t.
For me, it’s the easiest just by joining all types of clubs, don’t put any labels on it, and the world is your oyster. I have been really grateful to have made friends from all my clubs :DD (sosy, surge, intervarsity, treehouse).
And really do something tangible together - exec club stuff, flying out together for hackathons, few day trips, going out on a retreat, cramming for finals together. Whatever makes it a more worthwhile experience really helps in relationship formation.
Having depth is very very crucial. To have friends you can call if you need help with moving all your stuff tomorrow, needing a counselling advice if things got rough, or if you have an interview tomorrow and need a mock interview. Everything will just work out to be better.
coopmaxxing is the key
Coopmaxxing!!!? I can’t even land a single co-op! read: getting-your-first-cs-internship! I’m so glad that someone reached out to me this year that reading this has helped him to land a co-op this year.
Back in spring 2023, I had only 2 terms of school left with no co-op. I could have graduated school in 3.5 years, but it would be a super cooked life if I didn’t have any working experience.
To this day, I just really want to highlight how important it is to coop hard. Try out different roles, go to the next company. Job-hopping without the penalty is so underrated, and Canada arguably has the best co-op education system.
Sure, you will graduate way later, but it’s just such a cheatcode to try so many different industries and their nuances firsthand and know for sure what you want in your career later.
With co-oping, you can also really snowball into a place that you really want. You wouldn’t land in a good dream company in your first co-op, but the chances will be way way better in your fifth one ;).
Lastly, lotsa places only hire full-timers from their past co-opers. I am in fact a living proof of one. Though, I am definitely on the luck side, but still, if you have 6 co-ops, the chance of FT return is probably around 6x of having 1 co-op.
Note: Of course, this advice is not for everyone depending on what your goal is, but I do think it’s a really important general advice to be put out there.
pull the strongest lever
One of my biggest fears during my earlier terms at Langara was not going for a part-time job. Compared to studying in Asian countries, lots of students here do part-time and the minimum hourly wage is relatively pretty good.
I would have loved the money so much so it could cover my rent, but my biggest thing back then was prioritizing the time I had. In this case, when I was at Langara, it was gpamaxxing; the avg transfer gpa was 4.0 back then and I was worried to death if I couldn’t transfer. It did end up paying off well as I got a good TA job and transferred with a scholarship.
Ofc, I was in a privileged position that my rent was able to be covered (still hard seeing how expensive it is here and I had to minimize expenses), but being able to focus on the things that pay out the most will surely be delish.
And this law is to be applied in many areas; for my path, things like:
- building projects that solve a problem really well and marketing it
- gymming even though you hate it at first and now ended up enjoying it and treat it as ‘play’
- mastering meal prep really well so you don’t have to cook everyday
unimaxxing highlights
2023
- writing for sfu-cs-transfer-guide and have so many langara students recognize me
- placed 5/243 for nwhacks!! :D
- writing again for getting-your-first-cs-internship and hearing some success stories!!
2024
- going to silicon-valley-trip
- hackthenorth-experience and winning 2 side prizes
- hosting workshops! - stormhacks-intro-to-git, stormhacks25-intro-web-dev.md, langhacks24-intro-web-dev, intro-to-react
- leading surge’ s logistics and got cooked by the 24h hackathon and not sleeping
2025
- extending grad for toronto-on-review (RBC) and a gaming company at A Thinking Ape!
- joining intervarsity, learning more about faith and people, and joining 7 camps
- starting treehouse and hosting the weekly sesh
- finally, building sfucourses and get thousands people enjoying da site
- Larped all the things I did and getting 3 community scholarships for around $8k gggs
Apologize for the larp, of course I cannot hide if that’s the intent, but if some of you are inspired to do the same, i’m happy that i larped ;).
the end?
I want to preface again that sometimes, you can try to do it all, but things never work out. hard work is needed of course, but there’s always luck in factor and obviously privilege. I am just a little human in the face of universe that has much much more worse things happening now.
It’s just really important to just be kind and help each other. Life is not a zero-sum game, we all die one day, and i love hotpot.
As i’m writing this, realizing that being born in Indonesia and now able to study and live here is such a blessing and I will never be able to repay my parents enough for that.
