Looking back on the past 12 months and reflecting on the Wins and Losses, I decided to finally write about "My 2021 in Review".

Reflection enables us to evaluate the experience, learn from the mistakes, repeat successes, revise and plan.

Overview

2021 without a doubt has been one of the best years I have had and I'm looking forward to a better 2022. Initially, I wanted to categorize my 2021 year review monthly but I decided to list them under separate categories to keep things simple, not bore the readers, and keep it short.

Simple is better than complex, complex is better than complicated

The Bad: Losses, Imperfections, and What didn't go well

I believe I'm a very positive person, so I will write about the "Bad" part of the year first.

Failures and problems don’t make it to the highlight reel, but I think including them in this post is important for the sake of honesty. My year hasn’t been a series of wins, but a spiral of victory and defeat.

• I got rejected by many companies for software engineering internship roles and some I didn't even get a response (Google), the most painful one being a rejection email from a Meta (previously Facebook) recruiter telling me how they will not be proceeding with me to the interview rounds some weeks after I took their CodeSignal. J.P. Morgan ghosted me after taking their hirevue which I was sure I did quite well at. Twitter also ghosted me after taking their OA even though I passed all the test cases in their 4 questions. Twilio kept sending me emails that they are still considering me till they finished their internship hirings (also after passing their OA). I didn't do well at Citadel and Tiktok OA (the toughest OA I've done so far, I got medium-hard and hard questions and I couldn't manage my time well, felt like an "Olodo"). I had an average score at Samsara OA (wasn't prepared). So they served me my rejection email respectfully.
• Felt like a failure at some point for not getting invited to interviews.
• Bad social life during the first 6 months of the year. I was so focused on my career, learning new skills, and making good grades in school to the extent that I didn't have a social life anymore. I'm happy I improved my social life and interaction during the second half of the year.
• The sense that I’m not doing enough doesn’t go away. This was the most successful year in my life so far and I can’t let myself take enough breaks. Each night I decide to spend doing something fun, playing games, or watching Netflix, I find myself regretting not making use of that period to do something productive and sometimes.
• Not reading enough books. I tried to read many "non-school" books this year but I never had the time to finish most of them. It's either I get distracted by work or something else while trying to read.
• Staying too committed to a job even when it wasn't paying anymore. For the first 4 months of the year, everything was going well with the job until May. This was the biggest issue that affected my mental health and made me sad the most this year. It was hard to make a decision to leave a lot of things I've built for them behind but man must move forward.

The Good: Wins, Successes, and What went well.

Reflect on what's working well, these are areas that you can leverage for future success.

• The biggest win of the year for me was when a recruiter reached out that she liked my profile and she thinks I am a good fit for a software engineering internship role at her company. At first, I didn't take her seriously because I get many emails like this but thank God I did. After 6 total rounds of interviews (1 meeting with my awesome recruiter, 4 technical interviews, 1 behavioral and cultural fit meeting with the hiring manager and engineering manager), I got a 2022 Summer Software Engineering Internship offer from them which I accepted the following day. The company is a unicorn company in the US (San Francisco) into electric and self-driving cars - Cruise Automation.
• Became financially independent. I didn't ask my parents for a penny this year. Making some big purchases became easier.
• Moved into a new apartment.
• Set up my workspace.
• Bought an iPhone.
• Bought a new M1 MacBook Pro.
• Bought a 34" curved monitor.
• Had really good grades in school (while also working full time).
• Improved my problems solving skills (solved over 150 problems).
• Improved my code quality (started attempting to write optimized codes and finding an optimized approach to problems when I can).
• My team topped in Nigeria during IEEExtreme 15.
• Got a job with a relocation offer. I rejected the offer (I can't leave my degree).
• Got into crypto and started understanding some web3 concepts.
• Learned Go programming language.
• I built a system that enables users to donate to NGOs and can deduct money directly from users' accounts (US bank accounts) without their ATM cards.
• My commitment motivated some people. This meant a lot to me.
• Met some really awesome people
• Got invited to the first round less than 48 hours after applying to Goldman Sachs Summer Internship Role. I was so excited because it meant my resume wasn't too bad as I think.
• Made meaningful connections on social media.
• Improved my communication and time management skills.

Moving Forward: Plans for 2022

Life can be understood backward but it must be lived forward

The funny thing about making perfect plans is that they never work out perfectly. So I stopped making perfect plans.

I don’t think I’m made to be working all the time and I don’t want to exist for the sake of work and productivity. I think I might have found a good balance between work, creativity, and productivity but I think there’s something invaluable in stillness and idleness.

My utmost goal is for 2022 to be better than 2021

And in 2022 I'm optimizing my life for prestige

• Wear prestigious clothes, eat prestigiously, use prestigious words, solve prestigious problems, grind LC prestigiously, have a prestigious body, have prestigious haircuts, think prestigiously, have prestigious relationships, listen to prestigious music, accept prestigious offers, do prestigious internships, learn prestigious skills, post prestigious and intelligent memes, laugh prestigiously (with a sprinkle of wicked laughter) 😂😂🤣🤡
• Become a prestigious person.
• Get a new job
• Improve my problem-solving skills and code quality
• Improve my reading habit (non-school related books)
• Get deeper into Go programming, build more cool projects, and pick up new languages and tools
• Get better at Spanish
• Hit the gym
• Improve my social life
• Meet more people and strengthen my network.
• More articles and technical writeups

Every single year, we’re a different person. I don’t think we’re the same person all of our lives. – Steven Spielberg

To the person, I may become next year.

Edit: J.P. Morgan reached out to be in January, 2022 for a final interview on their super day when I thought I have been ghosted. I got the offer a week after the final interview. Today, 20th June, 2022 was my day 1 at J.P. Morgan London office! 🎉🎊