Putting the Future Into Writing

Making goals for myself and then accomplishing them is a skill I’ve struggled with for a long time. I’m the kind of person who, up until recently, kept their to do list in my head. On top of forgetting simple assignments occasionally, this also means that I felt little pressure to accomplish major goals I had set for myself because they were not solidly proclaimed in writing.

With my transition to using a planner, I should now also work on recording goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely (or SMART). Hopefully publishing my goals here for the world to see will give me the motivation to accomplish them as well as helping me work through ways that I can achieve them.

Goal #1: Model United Nations Background Guide

I was asked a couple weeks ago by a friend from high school to help organize the first Model UN conference hosted by my school. As the former vice president of the club, I happily accepted, proud to see the club expanding. If you’ve never had the chance to participate in Model UN, one of the most important parts of preparing for a conference is writing a paper on your country and its policies based on the conference topic. Writing this paper is made a lot easier by a background information sheet released by the school holding the conference.

As a dais member for the Security Council conference on the Kashmir Conflict, that job falls to me.

So my first short term goal is to complete this background guide by Monday, the 22nd. I think with plenty of time to focus on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, that will be an attainable goal for me and it is relevant not only because I enjoy participating in Model UN conferences, but also because I am interested in learning more about the Kashmir Conflict in itself.

Goal #2: Being Published in the Meditations Journal

Being a new philosophy student at UCLA, one of the important aspects of my studies that has been harder during the pandemic is getting feedback on my ideas. One of the best ways to get that feedback would be to apply to be published in the UCLA undergraduate philosophy journal, Meditations—not to mention that getting an essay published would be a great milestone for me in my college career.

This leads me to my next goal; although getting published is a ways off, seeing that I have to write the whole essay, a short term goal I have is to write a thesis for this essay by the end of winter quarter, or March 19th. This is definitely attainable and as mentioned above, it is a relevant goal in my college journey, as getting an essay published will be a great asset if I do decide to apply to graduate school. Speaking of grad school...

Goal #3: Getting Into Grad School

This is something I would like to do, but before I actually apply to grad school, it would be good to know which grad school programs I want to apply to. This will require more research along with talking to other college students, grad students, professors, and counselors, so it may take a while. As of now I’ve been looking at University of Wisconsin: Madison and University of New Mexico.

So for this goal, I would like to identify my list of grad schools to apply to by fall quarter of junior year. Admittedly, this will be subject to change, but I believe it’s a good start. Important to this goal will be to decide what I want to do and what I value, both of which will be easier to figure out as I take more classes.

I think those three goals will get me through the next month or so, so I’ll leave it here. Now that I’ve put these out into the world, I’m one step closer to achieving them!