zmudzinski.me

I write Python code and do nerdy things.

Thirty year summary

Created on: 2019.05.06

Hitting thirty is scary. When I talked with friends in my twenties, I always envisioned a thirty year old as an mature adult, that isn’t young anymore. So as my birthday was a few days ago… I don’t see any difference. I didn’t grow a beard, get grey hair or even speak aristocratic british overnight (although that could be cool). To be honest, the only thing that changed is that when someone asks me how old I am, I can respond I'm 30, making it awkward for others.

Nevertheless, being thirty is a great moment to do a summary of stuff that worked out for me and where I failed badly over the last years. I won’t be looking in the earlier days, just into anything that is relevant to my career years, not to make the list too long.

What didn’t work out.

  • Failed High School finals in Chemistry, took a year of my life. At that point it was something horrible for me. Today I think that it was a good thing, because it allowed me to think about what I want to do in my future… sort of.
  • Picking Veterinary studies - the choice wasn’t a thoughtful one. One shouldn’t pick their career based on I kinda like animals. The amount of learning however did teach me how to deal with my subjects when I went to IT.
  • I went to a photography school that I ditched. I start to see that I had so many problems with finding the right place for me in my early career days… I don’t even do photography anymore - just random pics with my phone.
  • I got engaged to a person that wasn’t meant for me. The good thing is that I left that toxic relationship before it came to be. Good riddance.
  • I tried working on 3 startups. Each of them failed to be successful (or even be). At that time I was always blaming it on other people, but in the end I think that my choices were the ones that didn’t motivate them or even killed the project.

What turned out… okay?

  • In 2014 I got my Bachelor of Science engineering degree in Information Technology.
  • I pimped that up in 2016 with a Master of Science degree.
  • In 2017 I got registered for a PhD conferment procedure (and still working on it).
  • Got my first job in the field as a .NET programmer at ITM Software House.
  • Became a Microsoft Student Partner and the President of the .NET group at my University. That allowed me to be the main organizer of 4 big IT conferences, various lectures and workshops for students.
  • Was a core member of a Robotics club at the university.
  • Got engaged (this time with the right person) and getting married next year.
  • Adopted Wifi (german shepherd) and Cat (a simple cat).
  • Published 7 scientific papers in various international sources. This also allowed me to visit USA and meet really interesting people in the AI field.
  • Took 1st place in an international IOTA hackathon organized by Datarella.
  • Took 2nd place in a Smart City hackathon organized by the Polish Ministry of Enterprise and Technology.
  • Started my own company that produces software.
  • Started working with Awaymo on their Python API and later this month doing data science for them - they are really great people.

Summary

To be honest when I think about my adult life, while it was a really bumpy ride, it turned out quite good. Nothing that I planned on the way turned out how I imagined it, but sometimes that is a good thing - the outcomes were a few times better than I have imagined. One thing that I learned is that - no matter what - you should try fighting for your personal goals and while it might not work out the first few times, it will eventually.