internal conviction + meeting new ppl

June 20, 2025

Update #1: I've found my internal conviction.

TL;DR: I'm dropping the pre-med path. Going to pave my path in AI in drug discovery.

Long story (skip if you don't want to read my rambling thoughts): In 8th grade, my mother was diagnosed with a brain tumor—it was painful, shocking, and life-altering for my entire family. That was the moment I knew I wanted to work in the life sciences or healthcare; when I knew I wanted to make an impact by saving lives. Up until now, I've been playing with the idea of becoming a neurosurgeon, all whilst knowing I love to build.

But this summer, as my research in protein modeling has progressed, I've realized that what gets me up in the morning isn't the idea of becoming a doctor. It's my dream of becoming an innovator by using AI in drug discovery. I can make the same, if not more, impact on people's lives—push out better, cheaper drugs: faster. And maybe I'll be the next SandboxAQ or DeepMind or Insilico or Chai founder??? (But then again, as Professor Sam Sternberg told me today, life is stochastic; who knows what will happen?)

So now that I've finally resolved my struggles—which means I don't need to waste time working as a medical assistant (not to say that job isn't important; MA's play such a vital role in the healthcare system) or studying for the MCAT anymore—I can focus my all on what I love: drug discovery models. For now, that means researching the mechanistic interpretability of ESM-2 (in layman's terms: uncovering how the freak the "black box" of protein language models works). I'm also trying to reimplement a DeepChem model for fun, so we'll see how that goes.

Anyways, #good stuff. Very excited to be in the lab I'm at and honestly to be alive on this planet in an era of innovation :)

Update #2: 100 People I've Met This Summer

One of my goals this summer was to meet 100 interesting (new) people. I'll be updating this list (replacing everyone's name with an acronym), but here it is so far:

  • The Janitor: I hope I meet you again one day. You reminded me of my own father, 5000 miles away. You walked up to me on a Tuesday night at 10:30 PM in Milstein Library. Instead of kicking me out (the library closed at 9 PM), you asked me if I thought your daughter could ever end up here. You are an incredible father for working this hard, believing in your daughter, and pushing her to do her best. That one interaction is one of my top memories from this summer. And yes, Corina, you most definitely belong here at Columbia (though maybe consider Harvard or Stanford given the campus climate).
  • Ash: The loveliest, kindest, & friendliest person I've met this summer :) incredibly smart and hard-working. I hope we'll stay friends for a long time—I really look up to you, both in the lab and as a person.
  • Elf: Thanks for the startup internship offer LOL & respect the grind for your dreams.
  • R: Respect the willpower to drop a cozy, high-paying job to chase the startup dream.
  • Ron: Holy networking legend. One of the craziest & hardest working people I've met. Also, respect the work-hard-play-hard ethic (I don't think I'll ever have the energy to work until 3 AM, hit a rave, and repeat daily—but massive respect).
  • Cee: Criminal Minds producer.
  • Sair: Frontend engineer.
  • Dae: Startup founder turned engineer.
  • Dae's Girlfriend: Startup founder? Or engineer? idk but u cool.