Pretty big year for me!

This year i will be starting at University of Toronto St. George campus studying Computer Science. I am incredibly excited for a new challenge and experience in a higher level environment. UofT in particular is held in high regard on the international stage, and has contributed greatly to research in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence.

This September, I will also be participating in Hack the North, one of the biggest hackathons of the year! I am super excited!

Without further ado…

My goals this year:

1. Read more research papers and study higher level concepts

This goal is purposely vague and cannot be “completed”. The point of setting myself this goal is to motivate myself to learn past what is required and dive deeper into subjects that interest me.

Try to understand Steve Shreve’s Stochastic Calculus for Finance

This book is very well known for being a fundamental look at modern day quantitative finance. A space I am very interested in.

Read 3 research papers per month (Read, Understand, and Apply)

Begin with simpler papers, try to annotate them and create notes, then apply in some way such as: reproducing paper (this could be infeasible), creating a dumbed down version, or applying using a prebuilt library.

Look into understanding higher level math and statistics

Concepts like partial differential equations or distributions, are currently partially (haha) out of my reach. But these concepts are integral (pun) in understanding backpropagation and other ML/AI concepts, along with finance related subjects like Black-Scholes Martin (This will come up later) derivatives pricing.

2. Build more! Anything at all, build it!

This goal is again very general, I want to find more time to build personal projects that can be related to anything I find of interest.

Potential projects may be: Black-Scholes Martin model along with a visualization, Cool data visualizations, trying out different ML/AI models, Building some models from scratch.

Also collaborate with other passionate people! If you want to build something with me, contact me via email or Instagram @ollie_km

3. Academic success! (The goal I am most scared of)

The University of Toronto St. George campus CS program is a notoriously difficult and rigorous university program. Currently, I am taking PUMP II (UofT math preparation course), so hopefully I won’t be completely caught out by the increase in difficulty.

The University of Toronto St. George campus CS program has a caveat. You must meet something called POST, which is a minimum grade requirement to remain in the CS program. I at least hope to make POST.

Academic success comes in many forms. For me, I always shoot for the stars, I either make it or miss, but in both cases I still learn and progress. KEEP MOVING FORWARD AND UP.

I also aim keep the doors of a Masters in Computer Science open by maintaining a high GPA.

Lastly… Don’t let failure get in the way of progress.

This is for me and anyone who happens to read this. While failure sucks, and it will always suck, you always come out stronger or at least having learned something.

So, while I will try to complete these goals this year, failure to do so is not the end of world and should only be taken as a motivator.

Thank you for reading, here’s a picture of my cat.