Winter quarter was filled with so much learning it’s taken me into Spring just to process it all.
In many ways, this was my most fulfilling quarter yet. Ironically, just as I’m about to graduate, I feel like I finally started really learning — and most of it happened outside the classroom. I felt intellectually alive in a way I hadn’t before.
The Mindset: deep learning and flow states 🌊
After a fun, fast-paced fall, I went into winter wanting to slow down and lock in — partly to prep for what I assume will be a chaotic (but joyful) Spring. The goal was simple: do less, go deep.
I ended up thinking, learning, and reworking the way I focus in ways I didn’t quite expect. Smaller, more intimate social gatherings. Creative academic projects. Long blocks of solo research and directed readings for my thesis. It was a quarter of breaking my own expectations — and a good reminder that often, the best things are the ones you don’t plan for.
By the Numbers 🔢
1️⃣0️⃣k ran (my first and perhaps last)
3️⃣peat unfortunately not seen in Kansas City
1️⃣2️⃣ hours in Las Vegas (again)
8️⃣9️⃣2️⃣ miles driven to and from Tahoe
4️⃣0️⃣0️⃣0️⃣+ downvotes on Fizz
The Learning 📝
I’ve renamed this section because, frankly, most of my real learning this quarter didn’t come from the kind of classes you put on a résumé.
There was PoliSci 1 — which, to be honest, was mostly made worth it by getting to sit in class with my sister Sahana every week. CS 124 was a bit of a slog, but I made it through for the sake of the CS minor. But while those classes played quietly in the background, most of my growth came elsewhere: my thesis work, a directed reading with a structuralist history professor, late-night conversations with friends, social dance, and a few well-timed life lessons.
My Thesis
This quarter was Phase 2 of my thesis: the interview grind. I spent most of winter reaching out, following up, scheduling, rescheduling, and finally collecting interviews. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s not to get too attached to your own words — be ready to write, rewrite, and rewrite again. Getting interviews, I quickly discovered, is mostly about persistence (much inspired by Jcos). I also learned how to use NVivo for qualitative coding, which felt like learning an entirely new language. And perhaps most importantly, I realized that your interviewees are often your best leads for finding more interviewees. The snowball effect is very real.
Directed Reading on Demographics
This quarter, I dove into a directed reading at Hoover on demographics and population trends — which, it turns out, are a lot more nuanced (and way less apocalyptic) than much of the public discourse suggests. One major takeaway: demographers really suffer from alarmism. Take Paul Ehrlich, for example. His infamous Population Bomb predicted global collapse based on the simple (and highly questionable) math of birth rates minus death rates. Ehrlich’s approach, rooted in Malthusian thinking (though he conveniently avoids citing Malthus), failed to anticipate technological breakthroughs like the Green Revolution that dramatically expanded our capacity to feed billions. His work, while influential in shaping environmental regulation, often weaponized population growth as a Trojan horse for broader progressive environmental arguments — dismissing innovation, capitalism, and science along the way.
Beyond apocalyptic projections, we explored how culture and economics shape immigration adaptation — Japan being a fascinating case study. While Japan resisted immigration in the 1990s, today labor shortages have forced a quiet shift: in 1991, there were over four working-age Japanese adults for every person over 64; today, that ratio is below two. Immigration now sits at the intersection of globalism, remittances, trade, and onshoring, revealing how tightly economics and demographics are linked.
We also flipped the usual narrative from youth bulges to what might be called the senior bulge — recognizing that while youthful populations correlate with revolutions that linger or re-emerge, aging populations may see brief uprisings but are surprisingly resilient to long-term revolutionary conflict. But these patterns don’t hold for separatist or territorial conflicts, where other factors dominate.
And finally, my structuralist professor managed to pull me deep into systems thinking and game theory — how delayed feedback loops create emergent properties that make predictions near impossible, how strategies map to Nash equilibria, and how perverse unintended consequences are everywhere. A few one-liners from this quarter still sit with me: “You must bunk before you debunk.” “Each extremism is the oxygen to the other.” “For probability to work, improbable things have to happen.” America may import goods, but really, our primary import is math.
I’m coming out of this quarter with a growing fascination for both game theory and Japanese immigration policy.
Life Lessons
Not all my learning this quarter was academic — some of it was just about figuring out life. Here are a few unexpected skills I picked up along the way:
How to source, tour, and buy a house: More to come here with Mayfield house updates.
Personal finance: how to deal with a bank cyber attack: Nothing like waking up to fraud alerts to force you into understanding financial security, fraud protocols, and the joy of being on hold with customer service for hours.
How to handle a PR crisis: Sometimes, you don’t get to control the narrative. But you can control your response (there’s probably a whole article here)
How to cater an event: Sometimes uber eats is just the right way to go.
How to plan a dinner party: The right guest list matters almost more than the food (but a Preetha Basaviah fruit cup never hurts).
In summary, and up next ⏭☀️
Well —Spring quarter already came and went. Winter felt like a bit of a transition into post-grad life. Our version of quarter-life crises? Apparently it involves signing up for 10Ks. It was a quarter of persistence — of just keeping at it.
Senior spring: leaning into serendipity, embracing awkward gaps of time, and seeing what happens when you loosen the reins a bit. What would it feel like to be less intentional? Is there such a thing as too much intentionality? All this talk about perverse and unintended consequences this quarter has me wondering.
A last quarter at Stanford, means focusing on people—making space for spontaneity, late-night talks, and the kind of memories you don’t get to plan.
Crazy how time flies.
—DG