Summer Newsletter ☀️
What happens when you let a curious 16 year old on the loose on the West Coast.
Hi from California 👋,
It’s great to speak with you again.
I’m Satvik - a 16 y/o who is trying to learn about and explore as much of the world as possible. This is my monthly newsletter!
A quick note:
This month, I’m trying something new with the newsletter:
Switching over to Substack instead of MailChimp. To reference my previous newsletter, feel free to check out the link here: https://www.subscribepage.com/o8u0c9
Keeping the newsletter more Succinct and easier to briefly skim through.
If you have any thoughts on the alternative format, shoot me an email and let me know your thoughts. I’d love to hear your feedback :)
Without further ado, here’s what I’ve been up to:
Exploring the World.
Business x Brains; Working my first Internship for a Neurotech Startup 🚀
This summer, through an opportunity presented by TKS, I was able to join EMOTIV, a neurotech company based in San-Francisco that builds commercial-grade EEGs, and software solutions, primarily for uses in Industry and Research. I worked for 2.5 months, exposing myself to a moderately corporate environment, and learning what it feels like to have a job. I had a few key takeaways from the internship, including things I think I did well and things to do better next time, which you can read in a Medium Article here.
Exploring the World.
Sticking electrodes into the Brains 🧠 of Mice 🐁
In addition to working at EMOTIV, I was presented with an opportunity to travel to San Diego and work part-time in a Cognitive Science lab at the University of California San Diego. Here, I’m spending half my time working on an experiment to better understand spatial cognition in rats (specifically how they process objects relative to boundaries) and the other half of my time building microdrive sensors (kind of like electrodes) that will later be surgically implanted in rat brains to track single cell neurons.
As a result of the experience, I am starting to understand more of how academia works, developing basic wet lab skills, learn to handle animals and work my way around power tools. While I don’t think Academia is for me, I found working here to be really insightful and a wonderful way to test the waters in something new.
Learning about Myself.
Challenging my Assumptions about Everything 🌎
Perhaps the biggest mindset shift that I’ve gone through in the last few months is the fact that most of my intrinsic value system is not actually mine, rather, one that’s been given to me by living 16 years in a system that believes in those values.
Most of what I judge as good or bad, normal or novel, interesting or mundane, come from a western point of view. For example:
Seeing the world through an ego-centric POV (Focusing on myself and how I take/provide value relative to others): Normal by Western Standards; Unconventional by Indian Standards
Seeing the world largely through a lense of my role and obligations to a community: Uncommon common by Western Standards; The norm by Indian Standards
Neither one is necessarily better than the other, but this serves as an example of how the ideals we have in our mind are often a byproduct of the culture around us, not necessarily what is best for our happiness.
As a result, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking and trying to challenge my underlying assumptions about the world.
Do I focus on what I want to do or do I focus on my obligations to a community? Are certain degrees of authoritarianism okay? Is too much democracy possible? Is marriage for everyone? Is eating cold pizza acceptable? (it’s not)
The goal of asking these questions isn’t just to break free from the chains of cultural conditioning, but to become more in contact with how the world actually works. In doing so, I hope to unlock higher-level insights and opportunities that I would otherwise be naive to or unaware of.
Stepping Away
Exploring the West Coast 🧗♂️
When I’m not actively pursuing other things, I love to take a step away and submerge myself in nature. With the free time available, I’ve gone camping, and have gotten really into rock climbing and surfing. Here’s some photos :)
What’s Next
High School 🏫 starting back up (in person) - very excited for this
Going into my second year at The Knowledge Society as an Activator 🚀 (learning about the worlds biggest problems and frameworks to tackle them)
Teaching myself Solidity 🌐 (Ethereum’s Smart Contract Programming Language) because Blockchain is incredibly fascinating.
See you Later 👋
And that’s what’s up. Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed the newsletter, feel free to share it with a friend.
If you have any thoughts/comments/feedback, I’d love to hear it! You can get in touch through any of the following:
Email | LinkedIn | Twitter | Calendar
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