Successes and Failures in 2018

With the help of the Internet, we have started to see only the sides of people that they want us to see. So, whenever we get too caught up to these not so representative pictures of people studying, having fun and doing all the things that they should accomplish, we sometimes miss the fact that we are all human, and none of us is perfect.

In 2018, I have accomplished a lot; but while doing all of that, I did give up from some of the things that are actually really important for both my physical and my mental health. Therefore, I wanted to present you all of these things as a list to show that people may not be exactly like what they seem to us when we only evaluate them from the social media perspective.

Here we go:

Successes of 2018

  • I took a course on Computer Vision and learned a lot about Deep Learning.
  • I made an internship as a researcher for the first time in one of the laboratories of Computer Engineering department.
  • I have discovered that GitHub also has an Education part to which you can be enrolled if you are a student in a university. So, you can create private repositories for free.
  • I started my blog: Coding Woman, and so far, I really loved blogging.
  • Also, I started a Twitter and an Instagram account to engage with the programmer community even more. You would be surprised how many amazing people I have met with the help of these accounts. They motivate me each and everyday.
  • I attended my first workshop about Deep Learning. You can check this link to learn more about it.
  • I learned about Embedded Systems Development in a course which was a topic that I had no clue about before. It was amazing to see how the programs you write can be applied to the physical world.
  • I learned how to play saxophone! 🎷
  • I took an online course about Machine Learning and started creating Machine Learning Cards for the ones who want to get more familiar with Machine Learning topics. I think repeating the subjects regularly is the key. Hope they helped a little for this purpose. 📚
  • I started going to the gym for the first time in my life. Before that I had been in Cycling Team and Orienteering Team of the university so up to this time, I only did outdoor sports.
  • I started using my old Kindle for reading books in my free time. One of the reasons why I don’t carry non-technical books with me a lot was because my bag is already too heavy. It is a great solution if you carry a lot of things with you everyday! 🎒
  • I attended a conference about Artificial Intelligence.
  • I became a mentor for the Django Girls, and participated in a workshop to teach women how to code and make their own websites.
  • I became a writer for the blog of the biggest Artificial Intelligence community in Turkey named Deep Learning Turkey.

Failures of 2018

  • Since I had a really heavy schedule because of the extra courses that I wanted to take for the previous semester, I did not find the time to write any blog posts for 5 months. I will try to be more organized this year.
  • I did not use my Twitter account in a regular manner, so I will try to schedule tweets for when I am too busy to check that account.
  • I have not been involved in any sports activities for 7 months. 🥔
  • I have only read a few books that can be categorised as non-technical books, all the other books that I read this year were technical. I will try to read more and more in 2019.

In addition, I wanted to tell you that making a list of what you accomplished and failed at is a really great start for the new year. It is like a simple version of a SWOT analysis.

Happy new year!