My STAR Stories

Principles

Situation
- Frequently sick with respiratory issues like bronchitis and had COVID prior
- Had a realization on the permanence of death
Task
- I wanted to find a way to ease the anxiety of dying
Action
- I made it a resolution to make meaningful change in the world that lasts beyond my physical life
Result
- Made informative videos on Obsidian MD
- Self-learned front-end to make meaningful software during hackathons and personal projects

Situation
- Parents sacrificed family, education to move here
  - Dad has a non-recognized degree in Canada, has to do minimum wage jobs
- Was lying on a sheet of cardboard with my dad as we were moving to a new apartment as he was aching due to labor from his workplace
Task
- He told me to study hard and get a good job that requires knowledge so I don’t have to put myself in physical pain
- Provide for me and my future family
Result
- Took my academics seriously
- Started applying for scholarships and expanding my reach for education by moving to BC for SFU

Situation
- Have over 7000 hours across two games, probably 15,000+ total throughout my life
- Used to spend every waking second playing games
Task
Action
- Start creating goals and making projects to work towards them
- Scheduling my day and setting up systems to keep me distracted and make meaningful progress
Result
- Happier

Situation
- Joined a hackathon with two fourth-year computer science students and assumed I was going to be carried, but in reality I was the most knowledgeable person for front-end development
- No one really took initiative, was assuming they would because they were more experienced
Task
- Take initiative and get the ball rolling as no one knew where to start
Action
- Created a notion page to create kanban boards
- Gave people instructions and checked up on them, helping setup react and give advice for implementation
Result
- People began working on key features. Didn’t fully implement but people learned new things
- Be more comfortable in a leadership position

Situation
- Hackathon, had a designer, two backend, and me
  - No one else knew react well so I was the solo front-end
Task
- Never made a react application on my own prior
Action
- Coded for 16 hours straight
- Seeked help from mentors and friends when hard stuck
Result
- Learned various common practice in web applications like user authentication, database management, input forms

References:

Created:: 2022-03-20 01:17

Situation
- First hackathon brainstorming process
- One guy had a lot of very viable ideas that could provide meaningful impact in the world
Task
- We had to choose one, and decided to make something to help students save time through audio transcription
Action
- Was my first time doing applied front-end so was not as contributory as I could have been, but I learned a lot and assisted as much as I could in other parts like presentation and errands
Result
- First ever hackathon project, a prototype that actually solved the issue we wanted to tackle in only a few hours
- Feeling of not being able to do anything didn’t sit well with me, so I wanted to keep refining my front-end technology

Situation
- Throughout my schooling I always heard about how my teachers had to get second jobs to pay the bills
- With covid and not so good professors, it can be hard to understand complex topics
- Using social media for educational purposes can be distracting seeing how close entertainment is
Task
- Decided to solve both needs by creating a platform where professors can monetize their knowledge for students to freely view
Action
- Coordinated with new people of different backgrounds and collaborated on design and implementation of project
- Solo front-end
Result

Situation
- Lots of useful applications available, but sometimes there’s friction in the way that may prevent people from using it
- Wanted to start using a task management app more often
Task
- Decided to integrate it into my commonly used note taking app Obsidian during Obsidian October, dev month for community
Action
- Me and a friend learned typescript and react
  - API calls, CSS styling, reusable components
Result
- Accepted as 1 of the 508 obsidian community plugins, over 550 downloads
first year software systems student at sfu
have been learning front end for around 8 months
over 4 hackathons
main things are ambition, discipline, and communication skills

rodrigo eyetracker, web-based app