My past stupid academic choices. Today I saw a friend of mine at the campus [I think I have mentioned that I pass through the campus of the university I graduated from to get to work.] He said that he applied for PhD positions in some American universities. He gave me some tips on how to apply for EE/CS positions. He also encouraged me to publish a paper with one of the professors in EE department. At the moment I was speaking with him, I thought of my past academic choices and regretted that I could have done a lot better. He shared some news with me that motivated me a bit. In my first year of college I had a course about "fundamentals of electrical engineering". We had a nice TA that used to help us with our EE questions. My friend told me that she's recently become an assistant professor at Princeton university. She's apparently a well-accomplished researcher. She's just two years older than me.