Delicious December at Minerva University (2024)

PS. Now you know why December in Hyderabad is so Delicious…

The ever-changing definition of home

I’ve been away from home for over one and a half years now. When I returned home for my first winter break from San Francisco, I already began to feel that my concept of home was beginning to shift. Now that I have returned for my second winter break as a sophomore, I have no doubt in my mind that my personal relationship to ‘home’ will evolve just as I do over my four-year Minerva journey.

It's a bittersweet feeling. On one hand, nothing and nobody can change the fact that Hyderabad is the city where I spent 17 crucial years of my early life – the warmth of Irani chai, my mother’s hug, and the vibrations of my villa only increase in strength as I spend more time away. On the other hand, the monopoly has now become a competitive market – home is now also San Francisco and Taipei (and more cities to come!) and my close friends have become a ‘family away from family’ while at university, so it’s hard not to miss and video call them even during these two weeks in Hyderabad.

It's a complex tug-of-war between old and new. I am an evolving, growing, maturing young man so every time I return home, it is with new questions, ideas and experiences which I share with the others. And I must come to accept the fact that they are also growing, maturing and evolving without my presence in their lives over these four-month-long semesters while I’m away. But the reason I can come home and sleep peacefully for 10+ hours each night here on my childhood bed is that sense of familiarity which will probably only grow more significant and important in my life as I embrace the novelty of shifting cities every semester. Comfort foods, childhood toys, familiar neighbours, some things don’t change even as I do and I am grateful for that because it gives me a sense of ‘grounded-ness’ even during this phase of novelty and adventure, with limited stability in my life.

Home hurts and home heals. Every time I come home, I know not to cling on too hard or grow too comfortable because the time will come to pack my bags and head to the airport. It hurts to slowly lose the vividity of my memories of what life was like in this home for 17 years before I left for college – my mind seems now packed to the brim with the experiences of 1.5 years away from this place. Alas, it is still comforting to know that home isn’t going anywhere – these same walls, floors, and people will tearfully bid me goodbye and eagerly await my return again in May.

‘We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time’. Most importantly, home is a matter of perspective. I was secretly super scared when boarding my flight to San Francisco about whether I would lose the value of my home after living in 7 global cities over 4 years. But a simple rephrase has proven more powerful and hopeful – Hyderabad will not lose any of its value as my primary home. Furthermore, my definition of home will expand not diminish, and on graduation day, maybe I’ll have seven global ‘homes away from home’, because just like love is not a scarce commodity but an infinite one, maybe home is like that too?

A practical tip for college living

Thoughts on imposter syndrome…

My Minerva class had an acceptance rate of less than 1%. My classmates’ thoughts, worldview and tangible achievements will continue to dazzle me till graduation day. Of course it has crossed my mind that my acceptance here was a fluke, a lucky mistake, that I don’t belong in this exclusive community of bright, ambitious, accomplished young minds. Imposter syndrome can be a tough one to overcome but the longer it has control over your decisions and interactions, it will limit you from being able to clearly see the path you are walking on and what destination you are walking towards.

I’m nowhere near slaying this dragon but here are a few things that have helped in my journey:

· Talk to that person you keep idolizing. Especially if you idolize a classmate or peer, you must book one hour on their calendar, take them out for coffee, and sit them down for a genuine, deep conversation. The obvious benefit is that you will get a sneak peek into what this person is doing right which is allowing them to have such amazing time management, success, wealth, etc. A less obvious benefit is that most people can only be idols from afar but they are all humans up close – that one-hour lunch will help you humanize these people who intimidate you because you will realize that nobody is perfect and everybody has come on a journey to where they stand today – apart from Tom Cruise, nobody is born naturally as a superstar.

· Step into your own greatness, the world doesn’t need any duplicates. Some of my classmates seem to have won the lottery of life – intelligent, compassionate, handsome, wealthy, charming, I would kill to be in their shoes. Alas, I must keep reminding myself that the world doesn’t need a xerox copy of anybody – I will never be as good at being my friend as my friend is at being themselves and the same applies for myself. Take inspiration from people, adopt their mindsets and habits, imitate them for a short span of time if you must, but always adapt what works for them to what works for you. You are a spectacular, shiny and priceless gift that the world desperately needs – go find the scissors and start cutting off that gift wrapping which is concealing your true limitless potential!

· Get an outside opinion on what makes you special. You will make so many new friends and mentors at university – go to them with questions that you can’t possibly holistically answer just through self-reflection. Ask your friends what kind of advice they would come to you for, what specific project that would ask you to lead, what they believe is your greatest strength (tangible and intangible) – you never know when you will hear a surprising answer that gets you curious to learn more. This is not about external validation – it’s about understanding what area you already are at the top 5% in and asking yourself how you can move up to being the top 0.01% there.

Academics at Minerva – Philosophy, ethics, and the law

Topic highlight - Datafication

The exact amount of time we spend watching one YouTube video. The number of steps we take in a day. Our location at any given point in the day. Every aspect of our 21^st century lives are slowly becoming ‘datafied’ – our mood, health, sex are being converted (perhaps over-simplified?) into digits, decimals, fractions. Most of this data we give up without thinking even twice – the moment you open Google maps, Instagram, LinkedIn, you may not even have the conscious thought or worry that you are being datafied on these applications and yet you undoubtedly are!

In class, we discussed crucial questions about data justice and ethics: difficult questions with no clear answer. Sometimes all you need from a great humanities class is to leave with a better question. Who should have ownership of all this data? What is the role of consent when somebody gives up their data willingly and how coerced is that consent? Who is to blame for misuse or leakage of this sensitive data? We discussed a captivating case study of the ‘Adhaar card system’ in India and how despite numerous benefits and appreciation for the initiative, it also raised crucial concerns about India’s digital infrastructure and the government’s capability of handling sensitive data of millions of citizens with sufficient security.

A few actionable insights from the class regarding how we can wisely use and share our data in our daily lives:

· Be aware and intentional about what you quantify. Numbers are not the entire story. Some of my friends love tracking every element of their health: their workouts, diet, sleep, heart rate, body temperature, etc. Such people should have high self-awareness of what they hope to achieve through this quantification and whether the emotional impact of these numbers is often unnecessary stress and worry or clarity and insight. Numbers may conceal as much as they reveal – you may still feel tired after reading on your Apple watch that you had a ‘deep 8-hour sleep with a low resting rate’ and maybe that is emotional tiredness from your argument with your friend last night instead. Look inward and pay attention to how you truly feel within your body – don’t numb the natural feedback mechanism which we were all born with before we got hooked onto our smartwatches and fitness trackers.

· On social media, avoid scrolling and do active searches instead. Display the agency to actually search for what you are looking for on the search bar of YouTube, Instagram, Facebook rather than passively accepting your daily feed because slowly but surely it will turn into an echo chamber and limit your worldview. Don’t limit yourself to those same few podcasters, Youtubers, thought leaders which you resonate most with – ask around in the real world to friends, family, mentors and widen the spectrum of creators whose content you consume because you don’t know what you don’t know.

· Give context, narrative, and humanity to the numbers you work with. Most of us probably work with some data as part of our education/work or even personal research and inquiry, be that sales reports, presidential polling data, or feedback surveys from customers/users. Go beyond the digits to understand what the numbers really mean and what they are trying to tell you. Don’t make baseless comments on a country’s GDP or birth rate without putting in the time to understand: why? Especially with tragic numbers which we read everyday on the news in the form of deaths, accidents, suicides, rape cases, take a moment to remember that behind those ‘100 deaths’ there were 100 human beings like you and me who lost their lives. Try drawing 100 lines on a piece of paper or visualizing 100 faces or saying 100 names – that is the true gravity of this number 100. Ironically for myself, the bigger the number the harder it is to empathize with, hence requiring greater conscious effort to avoid dehumanizing each human life.

Student Spotlight

Marta Miaskowska (Poland)

Spending over four thousand hours volunteering before entering Minerva surely is no joke! Let’s begin with your dedication to multiple forms of community service throughout your schooling years which culminated into your own non-profit initiative, We Gather We Help…

You’re right! Community service is super close to my heart and in fact even at Minerva, I find some or the other outlet for volunteering in every single rotation city we visit. Back in Poland, I’ve volunteered in the fields of healthcare, education, horse riding, animal shelters, and much more! In high school, I was in the midst of volunteering for an animal shelter called ‘Ciapkowo OTOZ Animals’, when I came to know they were struggling with funding to keep the shelter running, especially as winter was approaching. With a strong drive for both volunteering but also business and project management, I decided to take up this fundraising initiative more seriously and give back something substantial to this animal shelter which had given me so much purpose and enjoyment from my countless hours spent there, with the lovely animals.

I was immediately aware that just one fundraising event wasn’t going to cut it here – the effort must be significantly greater. And so the journey began. Along with a co-founder from my class, we organized 10+ fundraising events which included speeches, fairs, the distribution of leaflets, informative sessions on volunteering and animal shelter care, etc. across schools in my city. We set up cake and sweets fairs in these schools, with all sales revenue going straight to the fund. Our events reached over 15,000 students and other recipients in our city, following which we moved on to company and government partnerships.

Our proudest partnership was with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) which spread their educational materials through our events and social media. We partnered with the president of my city, Gdynia, who supported and praised our efforts in public. We went to various conferences across Poland to speak about our fundraising efforts and the macro mission, which eventually led to winning the bronze award for all social projects in Poland, in the environmental category. Our efforts helped many dogs on the streets of Gdynia find a home while sponsoring the purchase of heaters, food, water, medicines, kennels and many more crucial supplies for our beloved shelter.

Overall, this project may seem smaller than my future endeavours but it was a crucial stepping stone for more ambitious ventures which I built later on in high school and now at Minerva. I confidently took on the role of a project manager who must manage so many moving pieces and people all at once, simultaneously having an eagle-eye view of the entire project with the long-term vision while also paying attention to the finest details of daily execution and logistics. This was my first project which went beyond the confines of the sheltered classroom environment – I managed a large amount of money, dealt with important people in my city and across Poland, had to document where all the funds were being used for official purposes, all with minimal supervision and handholding because I knew this was the time to ‘fail forward’ in a young women’s life.

This seems less like a ‘stepping stone’ and more like a ‘humongous trampoline’ which truly has catapulted you into the next orbit of project management and leadership. Let’s now ‘jump’ (pun intended) to your own venture, called ‘The Technology and Service Company’ which you continue to lead remotely while travelling the globe with Minerva. What does the company do and how in the world do you run a highly ‘physically natured’ business as the sole founder and CEO when you don’t go home for many months at a time?

All through high school, I was theoretically great at business management and economics. I was a two-time national Olympiad finalist for the ‘Tax and economics knowledge Olympiad’ 2022 and 2023, in Poland. I eventually realized that while I had a strong knowledge-base foundation, the next step would be practical exposure to ‘learning business by doing business’ and making real-world mistakes.

Real-world challenges hit me from day 1 itself. In Poland, you can legally start a business at 16 years, however it took me six months to both prove by law that I could have this company registered under my name as a high school girl and provide all the necessary documentation for the company registration. My company specializes in servicing all types of banking equipment (money counting machines, bill counters, printers, shredders, franking machines, etc.) in offices and banks pan-Poland. I arrived at this niche thanks to a combination of market research indicating high demand for such services in Poland, availability of workers with these specialized skills in my network, and support from my father and his network in the banking industry.

Establishing basic credibility for my business was another hurdle which took time and true work experience, because a 16-year-old girl is surely an outlier compared to the middle-aged males who dominate this industry in Poland. Slowly but surely, through consistent support and guidance from my father and mentors, I began getting my first deals, partnerships, and growing my brand credibility as I improved my track record.

It would have been so easy for me to take a temporary break from the business for my four years at Minerva and then hopefully resume in 2027 once I’m back in Poland. But I would lose so much valuable time and also the opportunity to utilize my new knowledge, maturity and connections built at Minerva in service of my company back home! And so I decided to run the business remotely even as I currently find myself in Seoul, hundreds of miles from my team and their daily operations. In my first semester in San Francisco, I decided to hire an accountant which has proven super beneficial as this individual can manage the financial documentation and taxation which is easier to file on-the-ground and frees up my time significantly. Being an F-1 (international student) visa holder, this also allowed me to follow the appropriate regulations for my capacity to work while studying in the US. I am super grateful to my core team who can sometimes attend to physical tasks on my behalf in the city, like collecting and submitting documents to specific offices or physically meeting my employees. Playing around with time zone differences has been a challenge but we make it work as a team!

My business continues to support me in many diverse ways through my Minerva journey. It helped increase my financial independence and helped me handle my daily expenses + travel in the rotation cities, which is a massive self-confidence booster. It helps me directly implement and experiment with new concepts I pick up from my business, economics and computer science classes here at Minerva, which further builds my theoretical understanding of the concepts as well. It helps me ‘put a foot in the door’ for new opportunities like networking, internships, projects in each city because I bring real-world experience to the table as an entrepreneur.

The next step for the company is to expand into the Polish military market, continuing to service banking and finance equipment. I have already been awarded a vital certificate in the field of protection of NATO and EU classified information training, which gives me an edge and the access to directly partner with the Polish military units.

The act of building a start-up from nothing is like raising a child from the womb to adulthood. There are so many ups and downs in my relationship with the company and so many times, it disappoints and frustrates me so much that I may think about quitting. But alas, the relationship continues through thick and thin, just like a parent would find it so emotionally difficult to abandon a child. Maybe the company does end one day or maybe I sell it, but this would be like closing a chapter of an incredible book and I’m just not done reading yet!

Let’s fast forward in time to freshman year in San Francisco. From being an entrepreneur to an intrapreneur, tell us about your fascinating civic project with Google and the development of an interesting app called ‘WealthWise’.

Fun fact: the civic partners who were our contact points and project leads for these civic projects were actually my roommate's parents, who both work at Google.

We had tons of amazing meetings with both Greg and Cynthia (the Civic Partners), who gave us incredible insight into the life of ‘Googlers’ over many years. It was lovely to be invited into multiple Google offices across San Francisco and even visit the headquarters in Mountain View. My team still jokes that it’s nice to have civic partners who conduct a professional and intense meeting with you in a Google office and then take you to play in an arcade and chill together, immediately after!

I’m a huge fan of Google offices which are strong community builders. A key philosophy is that employees should find every possible service at the office which they can avail at home – laundry, sports, cinema room, gyms, beds, gardens, everything. The Google headquarters in Mountain View is like a small town in itself – it almost feels like a residential neighbourhood as much as an office.

Coming to WealthWise, this was the project our team began developing (and is in fact, still working on!) during our partnership with Google. It is a financial app with the mission of helping Gen Z better understand their financial health and future, not only by managing their finances using logic and strategy but also through gamification and building community by making this ‘dry’ topic more fun and engaging through deeper connections built within the Gen Z community of the app. It’s a community-centric platform that encourages tracking and saving, group sharing, locally provided tips on amazing deals and offers, to build internal community and source knowledge from that community, like a university.

We designed the app using Flutter for proper front and back-end development. We began with detailed prototyping and wireframes, now we are more seriously writing the code and developing both the UI and back-end logic. We hope this app truly sees the light of day and can provide tangible support for our fellow Minervan classmates and other college students worldwide as they make this crucial transition into adulthood and independent living.

The time I spent in San Francisco and at various Google offices and events inculcated a deep drive and fire within me to build something which is both profitable and has social impact – it was a beautiful intersection of my passion for business, computer science, project management, leadership, community service, etc. Google employees are not intimidating or transactional in any way – they are warm, lovely people who you can definitely grab a coffee or go bowling with before they return to their important, complex projects which literally impact billions of Google users worldwide.

Much gratitude to my brilliant project team – Cristi, Guyen, Katia and Tuan. Civic projects officially end once you leave a rotation city and many of my classmates have long since left behind their civic partners and projects of San Francisco. I’m so proud of our intrinsically driven team which continues to build the project during our free time at Minerva and stay in touch with our civic partners in San Francisco for guidance and support – we are more than the sum of our parts and that is why our teamwork is making the dream work!

Book of the month

Movie of the month

Poem of the month

Holiday home by the sea

After many long months

Of struggle

Sleepless nights

Stress and over-work

In the suffocating chaos

Of the big city

When I think it’s time

To take a break

Before I break

I’ll run away

To my holiday home

By the sea

I’ll slow down

Question the rush of life

Wake up after noon

Embracing hours of ‘nothing-ness’

Watching my breath

With silent

Contemplation

I’ll smell the fresh sea breeze

Relief to my smoke-filled lungs

Let the cool wind soothe my hair

While on an early morning beach jog

I’ll build giant sandcastles

Like the mountains

of wealth, fame, success

I was trying to accumulate

Only to smile as the sea washes away

My hard work

Without regret, I will stroll

along the shore

and grasp at the setting sun

I will finally sleep in peace at night

The waves lapping gently

Gently against my seaside home

A soothing lullaby

And when vacation time is up

And if I’ve grown too fond

Of this new lifestyle

And am dreading the prospect

Of returning to past madness,

Then maybe I’ll ask

for an extended break,

to stay a tad bit longer

in my holiday home by the sea

And when my extended break is done,

Just maybe

I’ll have had enough time

To fall in love with the ocean

So much love

That I want this vacation

To become my new normal routine

Because I don’t want to

Just make a living

Even the mosquitos do that

I want to make a life

Worth

Living

In this holiday home

By the sea

Wow! That was long. Please subscribe to my monthly newsletter if you would like to stay updated with my monthly adventures as I travel to six global cities (San Francisco, Taipei, Seoul, Buenos Aires, Hyderabad and Berlin) over the next three years with Minerva University. Until then, Au revoir!

PS. It’s freezing but our hearts are ever-warm in Seoul!