I wasn’t originally going to write anything about SPARC (it ended on July 30th). This is because Evan Chen’s SPARC reflection<\/a> was only written after attending sparc three times (twice as a camper, once as an instructor).<\/p>\n\n\n\n But, people were collecting testimonials, so I had brainstormed things to say anyways. I ended up jotting down stuff about SPARC, and I can’t bear leaving things in a bullet note format, so here we go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I grappled with this question a lot before SPARC as well as in the opening days of SPARC. By the end, I stopped caring, which I’m pretty sure was other people too. Before I stopped caring, I settled on an analogy. MIT computer science has a missing semester<\/a>” class which teaches a lot of the “soft” skills in computer science like how to use github, vim, etc (these are things that get skipped in a liberal arts education to avoid becoming a boot camp). SPARC can be seen as the missing semester, but for life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Looking back now, I no longer believe this. It was certainly the goal, but the trajectory is inevitably influenced by the campers and staff themselves (agency!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yan’s (the director) informal intention was to make SPARC a mix of “the best parts of his experience MOP, RSI, & USACO Camp.” I think this is actually a pretty good descriptor (even though I’ve only done mop, Yan lowkey flexing his camps). But, without the underlying intensive academic focus of these three camps — mop was a lot of math — even if you’re doing the same things, the vibe changes. Because of that, SPARC became a “reset point.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n This was because SPARC was made up of three main groups: (1) diehard EA folks, many of whom were homeschooled and\/or had dropped out of college and might be doing startups, etc. (2) Harvard\/MIT freshman, and (3) rising seniors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, SPARC, in my personal experience, became a chance to think about you really want to do with your life. This is something that group (1) have already made a huge gamble on, group (2) will have to decide on (how to use this education), and group (3) will also have to decide on (it’s helpful to have some idea of what you want from college while choosing which colleges to apply to).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first question is easier to answer, and I’ve settled on broadly going into either academia or startups, although this is of course open to change. The startups option was made a lot more feasible after hearing Michael Gao’s (he’s not that famous) life story. But academia is pretty attractive too: Vladimir Rokhlin Sr<\/a>. and Jr<\/a>.’s Wikipedia articles link to each other which is so wholesome (and I want that with my dad).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The second question is a lot harder. Honestly, I hit rock bottom in terms of how much faith I had in there being a point to everything I was doing. College apps are, unfortunately, a black hole of meaning. Everything gets sucked in and becomes something “for college” even if it never was. And that makes everything feel meaningless. After a while back home, and looking back, I think it was just that I was really stressed about applications, and now that I’m a bit calmer, I’m reminded that my life is really interesting and my work is fascinating (positive affirmations are surprisingly powerful).<\/p>\n\n\n\n A lot of the discussion about meaning came when talking to adults. While this wasn’t the only thing we talked about, talking to adults was the best part of SPARC.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhat exactly is SPARC?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What do I want to do in life? and what’s the point?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Adults are wise.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n