At the beginning of my university studies, I was surprised by what I had in front of me. Now that I've finally finished high school, a number of opportunities have suddenly presented themselves to me. I was faced with questions about what classes to take, what to study, what to participate in, how to provide for myself, how to achieve my goals, and countless others. After wrestling with these huge questions, I realized that, in fact, nothing had changed. I was still the same person I always was, only now I was presented with many more opportunities and room to grow. So, instead of continuing to wallow in grandiose thoughts, I began to experience what only a university can offer, embracing the infinite potential that lay before me. The first of my forays into the unique environment of a university was participating in a study abroad program. . As soon as I stepped foot on campus, my attention turned to winter break, when I traveled to London, England with a group of fellow students and a professor. In the previous term we met once a week, discussing almost every imaginable aspect of the city of London, from its history as the center of an empire to the role it plays in human trafficking in the modern age. The small group format facilitated an intimate, tangential discussion that often ran the gamut of areas, each speaker building on the previous. We were also each assigned an academic paper dealing with the sociological stratification of certain ethnic groups in modern London, analyzing historical immigration trends, cultural identity, relationships between ethnic groups, assimilation and growth of foreign cultures in British culture and the geographical associations of certain areas of London with former inhabitants or… half of paper… piece of scientific software edited and running on a deadline, forcing me to learn how to tackle everything on the fly. Now I feel immensely more prepared to tackle any project and much more accustomed to the academic world, having taken the first steps on the research path. Now, on the verge of completing my first year of university studies, I look forward to my future. Having been fascinated by calculus and mathematics from a young age, I intend to attend graduate school, eventually earning a doctorate in computer science, delving into research in the fields of high-performance computing, computer graphics, or algorithm analysis. Afterwards, my ideal position would be one where I am able to pursue my innate love, problem solving. In both industry and academia, I hope to dedicate myself to developing new solutions to computational problems of all types.