Failure Resume

This will be a dynamic document that I'll keep updating

Inspired by some other failure resumes, I decided to make one of my own. The purpose of this is to be able to look back and see how far I've come since these 'failures' and also remind me of how far I still have to go. This is the complete opposite of the brag document which is also a WIP

Failures

calling some of these a failure feels a bit harsh but I suppose that is what these are

• Many top schools (Harvard, MIT, Cornell, Duke) – Like every other Asian kid, I wanted to go to a top school in the US. Alas, some I got into but it didn't make financial sense.
• Hack Lodge General – Honestly felt a bit type-casted when I didn't get into the general Hack Lodge but got into the crypto edition. Grateful to be able to participate either way :) but working on presenting a better narrative
• Stripe - applied and got to the final round twice but could never get an offer :/
• Varsity Dance - I really wanted to dance for the university. That didn't happen. I ended up doing cheer which was also fun.
• Hip Hop team - hip hop was never my strength, but I tried to get better at it when I didn't make the dance team. Didn't get into hip hop either.
• Many auditions - during one of my gap years I worked as a performer. went to many auditions, faced many rejections.
• Blueprint - every Waterloo tech kid wanted to get into Blueprint it seemed. Didn't get in when I applied in 1st and 2nd year. Didn't apply again after that.

Failures I bounced back from

Sometimes the first time doesn't work out

• CS at Waterloo – My college journey is pretty long and stupidly complicated (mostly my fault). I actually started out in Mechatronics (a robotics program). I later switched to CS + Finance and finally CS. When I first applied to Waterloo in 2018, I did not get into the CS or CS + BBA program that I had so badly wanted at the time.
• Kleiner Perkins Fellowship – I applied multiple times before without making it to the finalist stage. I wanted this so badly in my first year of university, felt like a milestone when I got in this year.
• Contrary Fellowship – Arguably, I never actually got into the fellowship program but I am a Venture Partner at Contrary now though.
• Neo Scholars – I applied twice before never making it past the technical screen but this year I made it to the startup connect phase.
• Microsoft – I remember really wanting a big tech offer, any offer in my first year. Weird now that I started getting large tech offers, that they are not as appealing as before.
• Interact Fellowship – This was definitely an opportunity that I was super excited about and it worked out eventually :)