Anthony Xing

Nadra Fredj

HONORS 100

4 December 2023

Autumn Quarter Reflection

Even though it’s currently my 2nd year at the University of Washington, I still feel like

I’m always coming across new resources and opportunities at UW that I didn’t know about

before, which is surprising since I thought I knew mostly everything about UW by the end of my

1st year. The Interdisciplinary Honors program helped me a lot in exploring and learning about

more of these resources and opportunities at UW, like the Community Engagement and

Leadership Education (CELE) Center and the numerous Study Abroad opportunities available.

This is surprising, but it’s also kind of expected since you can’t know about everything.

What I didn’t expect though is the amount of writing you have to do in the

Interdisciplinary Honors program. I originally thought that a lot of the work you’d have to do

would just be studying and taking quizzes or exams. I find writing to be kind of tedious, but I

don’t mind, since I believe it’s a valuable skill that I should improve on and that will be very

useful in the future because many tasks like research or in the workplace often require a lot of

writing. I’m also looking forward to taking the HONORS core courses, regardless of the amount

of writing, since the topics look very cool to me.

Specifically, I’d like to explore the study abroad opportunities offered by the Honors

program and take these HONORS core courses during the summer quarter in Study Abroad. I

recently looked at the Summer 2024 study abroad opportunities under the Honors program, and

the one in Sweden and Finland seems very interesting to me. I’ve always wanted to learn more
about the Nordic countries and their languages. I’ve also found the art and architecture in

Sweden to be very cool, which is good since the study abroad opportunity and its courses also

focus on the art and activism in the Nordic region. I’ll most likely attend the information sessions

and consider applying to this study abroad opportunity.

However, by the end of my 1st year in Honors (2nd year at UW) and before Summer

2024, I hope to learn more about advanced mathematical concepts, like abstract algebra and

measure theory, that can prepare me for more advanced mathematical research next year. I also

hope to gain more valuable research experience during this year in both CS and MATH. During

both Winter 2024 and Spring 2024, I’m going to be doing guided CSE research project(s), and I

may also get to write a research paper in MATH 336 with guidance from the professor during

Spring 2024. I haven’t thought much about what I want to accomplish by the end of my time at

UW, but currently, I want to try getting into graduate school and pursuing a career in academia

and research.

Right now, I feel very confident about moving forward with the Interdisciplinary Honors

program and college in general. I like many of the academic concepts that I can learn this year,

and I’m very motivated to continue pursuing research during my undergrad at UW. I’m not super

worried about anything right now, and I’m even considering trying to pursue Departmental

Honors as well to earn College Honors. In summary, I am generally very interested in learning

more at UW, so I’m very happy moving forward in Honors and college in general.