I’ve been meaning to write this post for ages and have told this story in enough 1:1s that I feel the need to share it in a more scalable way. I want to share it more widely because I hope it can help other people (if I’m lucky, maybe you!) believe and see how they can reach a goal they thought was out-of-reach.

My second objective is to share some practical strategic advice on and tactical examples relevant to trying to get a job for which you’re severely underqualified. When celebrating on Facebook or Twitter, many people omit the nitty gritty details of their path to success. When we read other people’s success snippets, we might think, “Oh, that person is just better than me at X. I could never be as successful.” The former might be true. But the latter doesn’t have to be.

For much of my life, my family has had problems. And by extension, me. By some measures, the problems have been quite extreme. By others, not so bad. However, when the problems started to diverge more widely from what my peers reported experiencing, I began to feel pretty disadvantaged. I felt so alone, so tired. I felt I had to grow up too quickly, that I didn’t have the luxury of relaxing and enjoying life.

About a year and a half ago, I emailed my parents (who are first-generation Korean Americans) announcing that I’d decided to leave my PM job at Microsoft. Without very concrete skills, and without another job lined up.

I had tried my best to think rationally about my situation, and I concluded that opportunity costs of staying at a job where I didn’t feel I was learning the right things were too high. Of course, if I were being purely rational, I could have waited until securing another job or getting funding for my own company/project, but I felt the urgent need to test myself and create an identity around taking calculated risks, to convince myself that I was not afraid.

Disclaimer: As of 2015, Khan Academy has largely migrated away from its old Exercises framework in favor of the static problem framework, code-named Perseus. This post was intended primarily for beginners to web development. Also, the tips assumed the reader had already gone through the Getting Involved page and gotten set up with the basics of git, etc.

Several months ago, I learned about the Khan Academy’s open source Exercises framework. I had never before contributed to an open source project and was pretty new to web development. KA’s Getting Involved section was packed with helpful starting points. It seemed like a great opportunity to learn while helping real users in a very tangible way. So, without further ado, I dove in.

When we talk about achieving a personal goal, such as losing weight or getting a job, we tend to focus on the mechanics of the process: how often to exercise and what to eat, which companies to apply to and when, etc.

But so often, we end up falling behind, getting discouraged, and ultimately not meeting our goals. In these cases, it’s not enough to just talk mechanics. Something more fundamental is needed, something to keep us moving forward even when we are painfully aware we’re off-track.

That something is a story.

Note: As the 2011 senior class president of the Duke Engineering Student Government, I had the distinct honor of delivering the Pratt School of Engineering student graduation speech. It sounds kind of awkward when read, because it was written to be spoken. =/

Dear Pratt Class of 2011, we’ve made it. After four years of hazing by Epsilon Gamma Rho, taming the beast that is MATLAB, and eventually succumbing to senioritis, we are here. To family and friends attending today, thank you for your support. We couldn’t have done it without you or your money. Just kidding; checking to see that you’re awake!

I figured a lot of exclusive awards are going to be handed out today, so I’d like to share a personal story that reminded me of a substantial achievement that every one of us can claim as our own.

Note: This post, which I wrote the summer after my freshman year at Duke, was originally published on the Howard Hughes Research Fellows Program blog. I ported it over here as an homage to my past life in biology research. Also, from a conceptual standpoint molecular cloning remains pretty interesting.

My goal this summer has been to generate an animal cell line that can give off a measurable signal when a certain cancer-related gene is expressed, or made into protein. Specifically, I am trying to place the regulatory sequence, or “promoter”, of the ARF gene before the DNA sequence which codes for the fluorescent protein mCherry. When a certain wavelength of light is shined on cells expressing mCherry, the protein emits another wavelength of light which appears red in the visible spectrum. Cells which contain this new DNA and have ARF activated will respond to excitatory radiation by shining red. Those without ARF will return a weak signal or no color at all.