Hello, {Real} World!

Goodbye, SF 🌉 Hello, NYC 🗽 While moving to New York is top of mind for many, it wasn’t an easy decision for Emily — especially after just getting settled into San Francisco. In this episode, she shares her experience making big life choices and the pressure that can come with having more freedom. Emily opens up about her first few months in NYC, how she’s adjusting, and what it takes to settle i...

Life happens… and sometimes, you burn out. This podcast never had a hard deadline, but it’s been on our minds (for a while) to come back and catch up! In this episode, Carol shares her winter arc in Pittsburgh — how she hit a wall, and more importantly, what it took to find a way out. If you’ve ever felt stuck or are currently in a rut, this one might resonate. If not, feel free to tune in just to...

Remember the excitement of sending an MSN nudge, uploading your first IG post, or browsing Tumblr? When every interaction on the internet felt so magical, and simple? Now that tech has become so embedded in our livelihoods, our feelings around tech and the industry we work in have become a lot more nuanced and complicated. In this episode, we answer some of the prompts from Figma’s blog “36 Qs to...

For most of lives so far, we’ve looked forward to getting older and becoming an adult. Now that we’re ‘here’, that anticipation seems to be quickly replaced by anxiety and the fear of growing old (aka “FOGO”). In this episode, we chat through some of the pressures of growing up — Feelings of needing to accomplish as much as possible in our 20s, opportunity costs, and biological clocks. We also dis...

Hey, it’s been a minute! 2024 has flown by and we can’t believe it’s already been a year since we graduated. Now that we’re technically no longer ‘new grads’ (*sniffle*), we talk about the process of settling into new cities, developing new hobbies, and how our new environment (and friends) has influenced us. We also chat about mindset shifts around our careers, what we miss about being a student,...

We often wish we had older siblings to help us navigate university as it’s a time filled with change, pressure, and expectations. In this special episode, we’re joined by Olivia and Jackie, two sophomores in college, to have a conversation about the challenges they’re currently dealing with. We talk about everything ranging from dealing with comparison, to balancing academics and recruiting, to fe...

Setting goals are important, but developing habits are often overlooked. While it’s hard to see the impacts of our everyday actions, building and preserving small habits can compound to have powerful long-term effects. In this episode, we reflect on the habits that were instrumental in getting us through our busy schedules as university/college students, as well as the ones we’ve recently picked u...

Happy belated new year ✨ 2023 was a year full of important milestones, travel, and big life transitions for us. As an end of year ritual, we took some time to pause and reflect on all the experiences, feelings and challenges that shaped us over the past year. We reflect on everything from the bittersweet last couple months of studenthood, to the ambiguity of new grad, to holding more flexible ide...

Does distance really make the heart grow fonder? 💖 While not ideal, long-distance relationships have become common in this post-grad stage of our lives. In this episode, we’re joined by @filmwcolleen to talk about our experiences in LDRs. What are the most challenging parts? How have we been able to make it work so far? What would we tell someone who’s considering a long-distance relationship? Tu...

It’s hard to imagine a life without social media. In many ways, it serves as an important avenue for inspiration, content sharing, and staying connected. But at the same time, it can be anxiety-inducing, addicting, and leave us feel even lonelier than without. In this episode, we talk about our relationship with social media (from the days of MSN Messenger to now), and why we stayed off certain pl...

It’s been a hectic past few months as we’ve moved to new cities and started our first full time jobs. Big life transitions and changes often come with a mix of emotions, new experiences and unexpected challenges. Tune in to hear us talk about navigating ambiguity as a new grad, making friends in a new city, adjusting to full-time life, and new adult responsibilities. Timestamps: (00:00) - Intro (0...

As new grads, we know first-hand how stressful and challenging recruiting can be. This episode is meant to be a comprehensive guide to help those recruiting in tech for their first full-time jobs 👩‍💻!  We’ll be sharing our experiences recruiting for software engineering (thanks to our friend Lynn Kim), product design, and product management roles. From applying and interview prepping, to negotia...

In this episode, we catch up on what we’ve been up to in our *last* summer break before full-time. We talk about our eye-opening grad trip in Southeast Asia, what it was like backpacking and traveling with a big group of friends. We also chat about convocation, more travels, Emily’s summer job as a camp counsellor, and getting ready for our move to the States. _____________________________________...

Our romantic relationships as adults are heavily influenced by our childhoods. We talk about attachment theory and how we repeat the relationship dynamics and patterns we experienced growing up. What are our attachment styles? Do we date people that remind us of our parents? What have our families taught us about love and relationships? ____________________________________________________ Stay upd...

Family is a foundational and important component of our lives. In this episode, we reflect and analyze how our upbringings and childhoods have shaped our personalities, perspectives, and core values today.  How have our relationships with our parents evolved as we’ve gotten older? Does birth order theory apply to us and our siblings? Do we ever wish our parents did things differently? ____________...

The university/college experience…some say are the best, worst, or “peak” years of your life. As (soon-to-be) new grads, we recap what it was like studying Systems Design Engineering at the University of Waterloo. From first year imposter syndrome and navigating school during COVID, to figuring out our careers and fostering new relationships, we look back on all of the defining moments that shape...

“So, how do you feel about graduating?” is a question we’ve been asked countless times in our final term of university - and it’s become really hard to answer in a few sentences. Lately, life feels like it’s been hurtling towards the finish line of graduation, and so we wanted to pause and talk about all the unexpected emotions that come with graduating. We reflect on our last couple months on cam...

What is life like as a medical school student? From surviving a competitive undergrad to finding the right specialty, our friend Sonya Batth joins us in this episode to share her journey in becoming a doctor. As two people in the tech bubble, we found it fascinating to learn about what her pre-med experience was like, what her day-to-day is currently, and what her future in medicine may hold. What...

“Will I find love or will I end up alone?” According to psychology, our 20s is a defining period where we may learn to form some of most intimate relationships or experience some of the greatest feelings of isolation and loneliness. In episode 25, we discuss this theory in-depth and reflect on our personal experiences. Carol shares her experience learning how to be intimate in her first serious ro...

We’re great at sharing and celebrating successes, but how often do we talk about failure? In this episode, we sit down with our friends Chris Nguyen and Justin Zhang to discuss the personal failures we’ve faced, how we’ve learned to cope with it, and how we’ve been able to use it as a tool for success. We talk about expectations, comparison, the cost of success and muse over questions like: Why is...

In today’s episode, we talk about how our Asian Canadian identity has shaped us. We reflect on feelings of being different, share our “lunchbox” stories, and talk about how our relationship with our culture has evolved over time. Did we ever feel ashamed of being Asian? When did we start to appreciate and embrace our culture? How do we want to stay in touch with our roots? Tune in to find out. ___...

Happy New Year 🥂! The start of a new year is always a hopeful time full of anticipation for what’s to come and goals/resolution setting. We talk about both what we’re excited about and what we’re dreading in 2023 - From our last term as students to grad trips to moving to new cities. We’ve historically not been the best at keeping up with New Year's Resolutions… So this year, we talk through...

How is it already the end of the year 😩!? From traveling & studying abroad to summer internships to fourth year in Waterloo - this year was filled with new experiences, learnings and realizations. We reflect on the people, places, and themes that made 2022 the (best and worst - Emily) or (busiest and slowest - Carol) year.  ____________________________________________________ Stay updated wit...

To celebrate our 20th episode, we share the story of how we met, the ups & downs in our friendship, and what ultimately led us to this podcast. We share our first impressions of each other, when we knew the other person was a good friend, and how our relationship has evolved along the way. We'll also take some time to reflect back on the goals and motivations we had a year ago for starting...

While discussion on romantic relationships is often more popular in media, we often overlook and take for granted relationships that have just as much influence and impact on our lives: friendships. What are red and green flags for a friend? Can you continue to be friends after feelings have been involved? Have you ever "broken up" with a friend? In this episode, we look back on some of...