Author: Chris Bae, Email: baeh5@unlv.nevada.edu
Date Last Modified: 11/04/2024

I attended a robotics symposium held at ASU with members of my lab. I listened to research presentations from people exploring various fields under the broad topic of robotics. Observing how they shared ideas openly and listened attentively to each presentation, I began to think about the purpose each person had in conducting their research on robotics. When I worked on past projects, I often dove in without deep consideration of purpose or goals. However, I realized that if I set a clear purpose, I could establish goals to achieve that purpose, and that would give me the passion to reach those goals. While I don’t yet fully understand this process, I believe that by continuing to reflect on it, I can further grow. Thoughts about what I truly enjoy kept circling in my mind as well.

The accommodation we stayed at near ASU had many Indian residents. That day happened to be Halloween, which coincided with the Indian festival of Diwali. At first, I found the loud music noisy and a bit irritating. But after thinking it over, I realized that by joining in and enjoying the moment, I could experience a bit of Indian culture. With this mindset, I embraced the occasion and ended up having a fun time. I reflected on the saying, “Connections often come from chance encounters,” and felt inspired to meet and connect with a wide variety of people as I move forward.

Through conversations with lab members, I got the impression that everyone is doing work they genuinely want to pursue. This made me curious about the American education system. In my view, education in Korea doesn’t necessarily focus on helping individuals discover their own aptitudes. There’s a prevailing societal atmosphere in Korea that’s quite fearful of failure. While I’m not entirely sure how it is in the U.S., it seems there’s a more accepting attitude toward failure. Of course, failing repeatedly without learning anything would be a problem, but I believe we shouldn’t view failure as something “wrong.” Instead, we should use it as a steppingstone for growth. Even failures are part of our experiences, and there’s always something valuable to be gained from them.

I mentioned earlier, I’ve realized the importance of meeting diverse people. By interacting with many individuals, I can hear perspectives that differ from my own and learn things I might have overlooked. I believe this process can help me develop more flexible thinking. In the past, I prioritized relationships with close friends and found it difficult to approach unfamiliar people. I think I was limiting myself by saying, “This is just who I am.” I now believe that meeting a variety of people is an important factor in my personal growth, and I plan to put this into practice going forward.

Last week, I couldn’t do much due to attending a conference. However, I continued studying the machine learning code I had been working on before. My plan moving forward is to modify the URDF and the training code to create a learning model that fits my robot.