And that’s it! We’re now at the end of 2019 which also means it’s the end of the decade too. These past 10 years have gone by in a flash, at the start of the decade I started high school, now at the end of it I finished my degree at Monash University. So here’s a look back across 2019.

A Look back on 2019 – a year of achievement

I know that in my review from last year I talked about how fast it has gone by, this year felt more fast paced then ever before. But this year, after coming back from a long well-deserved holiday, I felt that I have achieved more than ever.

Releasing MonPlan

Towards the end of last year, we released MonPlan as the university’s official enterprise course planning software. At the start of this year, we integrated into the enrolment processes for VTAC round offers – this was the first test of MonPlan with over 7000 users using our sites within the first few minutes of the offers going out. We also rolled out to South Africa and Malaysia in the later part of the year.

Towards May/June 2019, I made a tough decision to hand over a lot of the maintenance and development of MonPlan to the rest of the team, as I was beginning to field offers from external companies. I made this decision as it made me knowing full well that MonPlan was in good hands when I left.

Awards

Something that really surprised me was that I was announced as a finalist of the itNews Benchmark awards – the awards night was hosted at KPMG Barangaroo in Sydney. Surprisingly I took the award jointly with the other finalist Fiona Sparks of Victoria’s Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).

Leaving Monash

In November 2019, I said goodbye to Monash eSolutions as I had taken up an offer with Google, where I will be starting as a Test Engineer mid-February next year. You can read more about my reflection of my time at eSolutions here. The interviews were pretty hectic, overall I did 5 interviews (1 initial phone call and 4 ‘on-site’ interviews), with a lot of practice on LeetCode (at least 3-4 problems per day, for 3 weeks up to the interviews).

A few weeks ago, I also wrapped up my degree at Monash. Which means I am graduating next May (let me know if you want to come) !

Volunteering

Something that I am always passionate about is giving back to the community.

WIRED

At the start of this I was elected Graduate Representative of WIRED. Some of the major events that I organised included TechFest and Bit By Bit Hackathon.

These events were really enjoyed by the students, hopefully will continue over the coming years.

Overall, this year has been the fastest and most hectic its ever been, with the end of the decade coming up, I feel like I have accomplished a lot this year. And hope that next year is even better.

A big thanks to my friends and family for being there for me for the past couple of years, and I know that moving away from Melbourne is going to be sad but I will always come back and visit. You know who you are.

Let me if you want to catch up before I head off!