My Monologue

Hi, thanks for checking in! I like going on random tangents when I write, so I’m not sure if this is the best way to write about myself. But hey, I’m glad you’re here.

I have enough places to tell you about what I have been up to, so let me take some random tangets about me here (do check out my blog for worklogs if you’re interested though!).

I have an interesting name. During my middle and high school years, I knew the existences of only 2 people with the same name as me. I thought it was not a very common name in my country, but turns out a name isn’t limited to a country. And for those wondering, no, I am not from India. Although I understand why you’d think so. It’s all good.

I studied in Japan as a business undergraduate for 4 years and received a degree in it, but I was truly never interested in anything related to business. Well, it’s a long story about why I ended up at the university I ended up in and pursued the kind of degree I pursued despite having next to no interest in any of that, but life does really work in fascinating ways. I must say that it hasn’t turned out too bad for myself.

To be very brief, I was always into math and was always fascinated by the engineering behind a lot of things I would see in real life. Bridges have always been one of the most splendid pieces of architecture to me; these towering figures effortlessly handle countless vehicles weighing tons, and humans somehow learned how to do that? It’s incredible. I tell this to my friends every time we go on some trips here in Japan and they try to stay amused for my sake, but I can see it that their thoughts lie elsewhere. Maybe I’m just a nerd. But I think bridges are cool. So are rockets. Humans built all that.

So yeah, I got introduced to the concept of Machine Learning by virtue of a professor at my university when I was a 3rd year student, completely frustrated with myself because I hated my major and had no option to pursue anything related to STEM. This man changed my life.

Of course, I was not as driven when it came to getting indulged in AI-related learning as I am now, but I gradually began building an interest in the so-called AI-related field. Things ended up happening when I was a 4th-year student, and I ended up getting a new-grad role in SWE here in Japan. I had 0 experience in software, yet somehow I managed to break into tech. I know I am not revealing some important bits here about what went down, but I believe there was a good mixture of luck as well as just the tenacity of making something happen no matter what to break into tech (not necessarily AI since I knew it was a leap too big to take, although I did not take it out of the equation).

I like to think of my progression in terms of a horizontal axis of real numbers between -10 to 10, where I believe -10 was me starting a degree that I clearly was not interested in after failing to be accepted into the program I wanted, -5 was when I found this professor who opened a new door towards the field of AI for me, -3 was when I first got a technical internship purely out of me selling my determination to learn, and finally 0 — the complete resetting of my negative career scale — when I first received a full-time tech role (my current one). In other words, my detours have finally converged, and my journey has finally started. What I have in front of me now is the hardest step of them all: breaking into ML research. But like everything else that has led me to this moment today, I will do something about it as well. Just have to work harder than I ever have before in my life, and for an extended period of time without knowing whether I’ll prevail or not. I know I can work hard, but not even knowing what you don’t know can get a bit daunting at times.

I will not say that I was glad I took this detour, but I am glad that I got to experience it. It’s an exciting time to be alive.