The Siroker Brothers

My Sophomore Year at Stanford

It is amazing how fast time flies. I vividly remember arriving at my freshman dorm for the first time on a cool September morning two years ago. I was a shy freshman lost amongst a sea of new faces. Only two years have passed since then and looking back at my first day as a Stanford student already brings back waves of nostalgia. I’ve been through so many memorable experiences, adventures, and all-nighters, that the two years I’ve spent at Stanford feel more like two lifetimes.

I wish I could capture everything that made up my Stanford experience. It’s very difficult to look back over two lifetimes and write about what I did, what I learned, and how I felt. Since reflecting on my past is such a daunting task, I will try to focus on the most recent of my two years at Stanford.

During the summer after my freshman year at Stanford I couldn’t wait to get back to school. Life at a university is so different from high school. I don’t think I ever felt like I “couldn’t wait” to get back to high school while on summer vacation. I admit that I did actually like high school. But the thought of going back to high school for just one day after having spent a year at Stanford doesn’t really sound too appealing…

Waking up at 6am and biking to school in the blistering cold. Lifting weights and running with the football team for an hour before everyone else gets to school. Sitting through class all day, taking notes, paying attention. Foregoing lunch to tutor peers at the academic center. Spending all afternoon either at football practice or working on the robotics team. Biking home after the sun has set and doing homework until the wee hours of the morning.

Now compare this to life at Stanford…

Waking up whenever I damn well please. Attending half as many classes as in high school. The “attending” part actually being optional. Choosing only the classes that interest me. Being able to extend class work into research. Eating, sleeping, living with your friends. Partying, socializing, and tomfoolery every weekend.

I admit that everyone experiences life differently. Some of my closest friends at Stanford have even told me that they liked high school way more than they like Stanford. Many people come to Stanford to “learn”. I concede that is part of why I’m here, too. But, I’m going to spend the rest of my life learning. My goal at Stanford is to meet and develop friendships with some of the most amazing people on Earth.

With that goal in mind, I really look forward to my next year at Stanford. I remember thinking the exact same thought exactly one year ago. Exactly one year ago, one year ago…

I was moonlighting between work in bioinformatics and robotics. After a summer packed with programming, I came back to campus to officially begin my sophomore year. I arrived two weeks early in order to participate in Sophomore College: a two-week long period in which only 20 classes are taught. Each student is enrolled in a class of twelve students and spends the two weeks learning about only one subject. My class felt like a crash-course in linguistics when I took “Understanding Language” by Professor Tom Wasow. Overall, I felt Sophomore College was a very valuable experience.

As soon as Sophomore College was over I moved into my new dorm. My draw group (the friends I chose to enter the housing lottery with) and I chose to live in a notoriously awesome dorm: Twain. Twain truly lived up to its nickname: “The best four-class dorm on campus!”

My friends and I before we embarked on our spur of the moment roadtrip to Las Vegas in one weekend without a hotel room driving and sleeping in a two door civic hatchback with five people

Over my year living in Twain, I fulfilled one of my main goals at Stanford by making some truly wonderful friendships. In the beginning of the year I was elected as one of the two Social Commissioners for the dorm. We were given the responsibility of organizing all of the dorm parties. Many a dorm party was had, and fun was had by many. Overall, my experience getting directly involved in dorm life helped me develop friendships I would have never otherwise had. Being involved also helped pave the way for my job next year as a Resident Assistant (RA) in Twain.

In terms of actual schooling, I took a whole myriad of classes. I took everything from elementary classical piano, to a class on the origin of the universe. I also spent some time taking classes on Computer Science theory. The theory classes I took helped me form a basis in subjects like Propositional Logic, Discrete Mathematics, and Automata Theory. I also took a great class from my advisor about Natural Language Processing.

One of the most rewarding extracurricular activities I got involved in was section leading for the introductory computer science class. I describe my first section experience here. Section leading has been by far the most challenging experiences I have had at Stanford. Oddly enough, it has also been one of the most rewarding.

This past spring I was accepted into the CURIS program and began doing research with my advisor. Having taken a class in Natural Language Processing helped me prepare for the research I am doing this summer. So far, I have achieved promising results, and my goal for the rest of the summer is to publish them in a paper.

Looking back at who I was one year ago, compared to who I am now, it is difficult to say how I’ve changed as a person. My experiences over the past year have helped me realize some of my passions in life, especially teaching, and research. I did my best to be as social as possible—my roommate and I always kept our dorm room door wide open. Balancing my time spent doing dorm activities and the time spent studying was, of course, very difficult. Having clear goals helped me enormously when I had to make difficult decisions: play, or study? I hope that the friendships I’ve developed over the past year will continue to grow as I embark on the second half of my life at Stanford.