A Short Note on 2016

Personal challenges for the year ahead

By

Tzen Szen

on January 9, 2016 11:58am

---

This year, I would like to set a couple of personal challenges to learn new things.

Last year, I tried many different things; from learning how to build Android apps, attending my first hackathon, and even starting this blog. While I started learning/doing many things, I would like to continue developing those new skills to eventually hone them.

Often, it is too easy to get distracted. That is why the theme for the challenges this year is mastery. While I don't expect to be a master of what I do right away, I should focus on a few things that I want to learn to become better at.

They are as follows.

1. The Rule of 2

Being a medic doesn't have to mean being trapped in a bubble.

This personal challenge will be about reading 2 books a month. While there is always a lot going on at medical school, that shouldn't be an excuse to not read more.

I am sure reading will indirectly help me become better at what I do/want to do through helping me to understand more about how the world works.

From books about design, other branches of science, business, economics, fiction, there are many books out there that will help me gain a perspective on a variety of topics. If you have any books that you'd like to recommend, I'd appreciate if you left a comment below!

2. A Year of Code

Since I started to learn to code last year, I'd like to continue from where I left off.

My interest in technology has led me to learn how to read and write code. On top of learning how to build cool stuff, learning to code has really improved the way I approach problems.

There is always much room for improvement. While it is definitely far from easy and does get frustrating at times, that is just part of the learning process.

The medical calculator app (I know, it's not the most sexiest thing) that I was building last summer requires more fine-tuning but I hope to publish it in the Google Play Store within the next couple of months!

Here's to an intellectually fulfilling 2016

Do take note that these personal challenges will be done on top of everything that goes on in medical school; I don't intend to neglect my studies.

I'd hopefully be able to say that I can provide more value to the people around me at the end of the year compared to the start of 2016.

Here's to an intellectually fulfilling 2016!