Preface
On June 28, 2016, I was 19 years old.
That day, I set foot on American soil for the first time and came to New York for the first time.
I stood in New York's Times Square, looking up at the neon lights, and felt incredibly small. But in that moment, a voice in my heart clearly told me:
From now on, I must develop myself in New York.
That was a promise I made when I was 19 years old.
At the time, I didn't realize that this sentence would become the compass for the next ten years of my life.
I don't know how difficult this road is.
—
10 years have passed.
Today is June 28, 2026, my 29th birthday.
What happened in between will be explained later. I just want to let you know first how this article came to be –
June 4My flight from Puerto Rico back to New York was the first time I had the courage to start writing the story of these past ten years. I had written halfway when I closed my laptop. Because the parts I haven't written yet are the parts I haven't walked through myself yet.
June 13The New York Knicks won the NBA championship for the first time in 53 years. I rushed to Times Square in Manhattan and celebrated with strangers from all over the city. That night, I realized – I was no longer a tourist in this city.
June 28Today is my 29th birthday. I am finishing this article. It's a gift to my 19-year-old self who stood in Times Square for the first time and made a wish.
——Puerto Rico, June 4, 2026. Late night in the Caribbean Sea
Because this article is different from the previous two reviews.
Transfer exam tipsIt was written in 2018, and the pain from that time can now be spoken of with a smile. Yahoo! Interview ExperienceIt was written in 2023, and it was a record of fair winds.
But this piece – many things are not yet over, and the wounds are still fresh.
If you're also in a low point you thought you couldn't get out of, I hope this article is helpful to you.
2017, first fall
After returning to Taiwan from New York, I looked at Keelung's gloomy, perpetually rainy sky and decided to transfer schools. I wanted to go somewhere better.
For the entire first semester of my sophomore year, I studied crazily. I applied to five schools.
- NCCU MIS, not admitted
- No admission to NTNU
- Taiwan Comprehensive University System Computer Science, enrollment rejected
- No admission to NTU
On the day the results were released, I looked at my parents' angry and disappointed eyes. On the surface, I seemed calm, but inside, I was sobbing.
I only told my parents:
I want to take the exam again. I'll find the money myself. I want to pick myself up from where I fell.
That day, I rode my bike home to Taipei, and that mountain road was especially long.
I silently promised myself two things: First, even though the cost of living in Taipei is high this year, I will rely on myself. Second, I will not cry again this year.
2018, the year I took a break from school to serve food.
In August, after paying for tutoring fees, rent, and miscellaneous expenses, I looked at the few hundred dollars in my account. Next month's rent is 9000, and I can't even afford the rent.
During that period, my routine was as follows: I'd wake up at 6 AM, head to the Xinyi District library at 8 AM to study physics, go to work at the restaurant promptly at 11 AM, hide in the stairwell during my break to memorize English vocabulary, continue working until 10:30 PM, and then nod off at red lights while riding my bike home.
In October, I lost 4 kilograms.
I wrote a sentence in my transfer exam experience that I've always remembered:
During that time, every time I rode my bike, I wanted to just twist the throttle and keep going, never letting up.
That year, I was admitted to the Electrical Engineering department at National Cheng Kung University. Out of 1600 people in the four-school joint entrance exam, only the top 10 could get in.
On the day the results were released, I stared at the words "National Cheng Kung University, Department of Electrical Engineering" on the screen, frozen in front of my computer for a long time.
That was the moment of "I finally proved to myself that I could." That was also the moment of "I thought the hardship would end here."
I didn't know it then, but it was just the beginning.
2019–2024: From NCKU to Yahoo, to that acceptance letter from New York
After getting into the Electrical Engineering department at National Cheng Kung University, I realized I wasn't the smartest. In my class, there were students who had won awards in the Olympiads, those ranked in the top 100 nationwide for the entrance exam, and kids from prestigious high schools like Jian Kuo High School and Taipei First Girls' High School. And then there was me, the ordinary kid who transferred in.
In my three years at Chengda, I learned one thing:
More important than IQ is the ability not to lose to yourself.
During that time, I wrote my first essay about transferring schools. I never expected it to be reposted by many people on PTT, Dcard, and Facebook. Many people wrote to me saying, "Your article helped me a lot."
That was the first time I realized—It turns out that exposing one's own wounds to others makes them shine.
—
After graduation, I joined Singaporean company Titan Technology. Eighteen months later, I transferred to Yahoo!'s Global Search Core team.
After joining Yahoo!, I continued to spend 3 hours every day after work preparing for English, preparing my US graduate school applications, and preparing for the wish I made in Times Square when I was 19.
I applied to over ten schools.
West Bank completely rejected. UCLA, UC Berkeley, USC, UCI, UCSD, UW... all rejection letters, one after another.
Only one accepted me—across the river in Manhattan Stevens Institute of Technology.
When I looked at that acceptance letter, I wasn't happy, I just thought, "Oh, it's *this* one."
It's not the school of my dreams. It's not in Silicon Valley. It's not even in New York City, just across the Hudson River.
But looking back now—This offer letter is the greatest gift fate has given me in this lifetime.
Because it took me back to New York. Back to the summer I was 19, the city where I made my wish.
2025–2026, the deepest trough
If 2017 was the first low point, then 2025–2026 will be an even deeper one.
Deeper, darker, quieter.
Let me list things out one by one – because if I don't write these things down, they'll be stuck in my heart forever.
AI Layoff Wave
In the two years I've been pursuing my master's degree, hundreds of thousands of people have been laid off in the tech industry.
In 2024, people still said, "AI is a tool, not a threat." In 2025, no one is saying that anymore.
Every day when I open LinkedIn, all I see is “#opentowork,” “#layoff,” and “#hiring” (for other people, not for me). Even senior engineers at Google, Meta, and Microsoft are looking for jobs.
That's when I realized—
I'm not competing with my peers. I'm competing with everyone laid off by the tech industry.
And AI is continuing to replace more engineers every day.
Sent 1000+ resumes
From internships to full-time positions. FAANG, all big tech companies, all startups, all recruiters, all internal referrals.
I've revised every resume. I've rewritten every cover letter. I've asked friends for every referral. I've attended every career fair.
In the first few months, every time I sent one out, I'd think to myself, "Maybe this one will get a response." By the end, the moment I sent it out, I knew – there would be no response at all.
I'm slowly becoming someone who no longer has expectations for their own efforts.
3. Solved over 1,800 LeetCode problems, scored over 2,300, ranked in the top 1% worldwide
With 5 years of software development experience, a degree in Electrical Engineering from National Cheng Kung University, experience working on Yahoo’s global team, and a practice test score ranking among the top 1% in the world—
I did get a few OA's, and I finished them all correctly.
ThenNo interviews at all.
It's not that I was rejected, it's that I didn't even receive a rejection letter.
It's like throwing your resume, your OA, and all your hard work into a black hole, never to hear a response again.
4. The visa route is starting to loosen up.
Starting from when I was 19, I've planned to come to the United States. For the past decade, I've watched the path paved by those who came before me:F1 → OPT → H1B → Green Card.
This road, which has existed for decades, is the clear "American Dream formula" in the hearts of all overseas students.
But after 2025, the H1B lottery rules will change. OPT review will become stricter. The wait time for a green card will be indefinitely long.
I don't know if my efforts over the past decade will be nullified one day by a policy revision document.
I study and live in this city. But whether this city will let me stay has never been up to me.
This feeling of powerlessness is more terrifying than not being able to find a job.
Can't find a job, it's "I'm not good enough." Can't get a visa, it's "It doesn't matter how good I am."
5. Heartbreak
My girlfriend of nearly 5 years, and also my business partner as we've built our self-media business together.
After the breakup, I lost three things at the same time:
Love.
Business partner.
A shared world that we spent five years building together.
No one between us is a bad person—we just grew in different directions.
6. Lost 10 kilograms
It's not about losing weight. It's about not being able to eat, not being able to sleep, and waking up in the morning feeling like life has no meaning.
I've lost a full 10 kilograms from my original weight. The person in the mirror has empty eyes.
A friend who hasn't seen me in a few months took a moment to look at me when they saw me, then asked, "Are you okay?"
I'm fine.
I'm not doing well at all, actually.
But I don't know how to tell people. I'm afraid of making them worry too much, and I'm also afraid of them not worrying enough.
So I kept saying, "I'm fine." I kept getting thinner.
7. Start repaying.
Starting in August 2026, I will need to repay two installments each month. One installment will be for the support my family has provided me over the past few years. The other installment will be for my bank loan – principal plus interest.
A fixed amount is due every month. It won't be less just because I'm not doing well this month. It won't be postponed by a day just because I can't find a job.
You don't owe money to strangers. You owe money to the people who love you the most.There's also a system that collects interest..
And you're not even sure you can make next month's rent.
It's a kind ofIt feels like even the future has been borrowed..
The darkest time
I want to be honest with you—
During that time, I thought about giving up.
I don't want to give up on finding a job. I don't want to give up on starting a business. They want to give up on life.
Once again, I find myself in that spot from 2018, waiting at a red light on my bike, wanting to twist the throttle all the way.
But this time, no one knows.
8 million people in New York, not a single one knows how many times I've cried in my small apartment.
At 3 AM, I will open LinkedIn.
Watching former colleagues get offers from Google. Watching college classmates join Meta. Watching graduate school classmates post "I'm excited to share..." one after another.
Every like, every congratulatory comment, feels like a reminder: "The world is moving forward, and you're stuck here."
I'll turn off my phone, then turn it back on, then turn it off again. Then I'll tell myself—just one more day.
During the day, I force myself to go out for walks. I walk from Hoboken to the PATH station and take one stop to Manhattan.
I watch people in suits hurrying into office buildings. I watch tourists lining up at the entrance of a Broadway theater. I watch the neon lights of Times Square still flashing.
At 19, I stood in that spot looking up. At 29, I stand in the same spot – feeling this city is so close, yet so far.
I am in this city, but I do not belong to this city.
Looking out my window in Hoboken, I see the Manhattan skyline. Every night, those buildings light up, like a glowing urban jungle.
I would think - would 19-year-old me see 29-year-old me in this city he dreamed of, struggling just to survive?
Would he have made that wish if he knew the answer was like this?
March 2026, Stand Up
I don't know from which day it started, but I decided I couldn't go on like this anymore.
Maybe it was one morning, I looked in the mirror at my ridiculously thin self. Maybe it was late one night, I opened my banking app and looked at my dwindling savings. Maybe it was one afternoon, I suddenly remembered myself at 19 standing in Times Square.
I told myself:
If God closes all the doors, find a way to pry open a window yourself.
This sentence is what I wrote at the end of my transfer exam reflection eight years ago.
Eight years later, I saved myself once again with the same sentence.
—
In March, I established two companies simultaneously in New York and Taipei.
For New York LLC registration, EIN application, bank account, and Operating Agreement, I researched, handled, and stayed up late for every single document and signature myself. The same goes for my work in Taipei.
During that time, I became a very strange version of myself—
During the day, discuss LLC terms with a lawyer in English. In the evening, review invoice formats with an accountant in Taipei in Chinese. In the early morning, revise resumes, cover letters, and continue practicing LeetCode problems.
I haven't given up on finding a job. But I'm no longer waiting for others to save me.
—
Fortunately, both sides are already profitable and have hired employees respectively.
I remember the day I sent my first paycheck. It was 3 AM in New York. I pressed "Send" on my banking app and transferred that string of numbers.
At that moment, I suddenly realized—
I went from someone nobody replied to when I applied for jobs, to someone who hands out paychecks.
I haven't gotten stronger. I've just switched games.
June 4, over the Caribbean Sea
(The following passage was written by me on the plane.)
I thought I would stand up after March.
The company was founded, employees were hired, and there's work to be done every day. I thought I had left the 2025-2026 downturn behind me.
But this month, I only realized—
Some emotions, you think you've forgotten, but in reality, you've just suppressed them without dealing with them.
—
Three days ago, a friend happened to fly to New York. As we were chatting, an impulsive thought—
"How about we go to Puerto Rico instead?" "⋯⋯Okay."
That afternoon, we were by the Caribbean Sea.
I never imagined I would go to Central America. Puerto Rico has never been on my ten-year life plan.
But at 29 years old, I can just say I'm going, and go.
The three-day trip went by very quickly and was very enjoyable. Hiking in the rainforest, my shoes filled with mud and my shirt stuck to my back. Lazing on the beach, watching clouds drift by one after another. Eating local fried food, accompanied by a beer that was always too cold.
As I walk, I think... I can still be happy. So I'm not broken yet.
—
Last night, I sat alone on the beach.
Opened two bottles of wine. One red, one white. The sound of the Caribbean waves is not far away, and there are ten times more stars than in New York.
Facing the sea, I said everything I wanted to say over the past ten years.
Talk about unemployment. Talk about heartbreak. Talk about losing ten kilograms. Talk about those late nights when you wanted to give up on life. Talk about everything that happened between the first time you set foot in New York at 19 and drinking by the Caribbean Sea at 29.
As we were talking,
I completely fell apart on that beach.
It's not the kind of tears that fall gently. It's the kind where ten years of suppressed emotions explode all at once—a loss of control that even frightens myself.
I thought I had already moved past it. But it turns out I just locked those things away in some corner of my body, without dealing with them.
—
I'm on a plane right now. Returning to New York from San Juan, the dark Atlantic Ocean is outside my window. Everyone on the plane is asleep, and only my screen is still lit.
I turned on my computer and started typing out the stories of the past decade, word by word.
Write to the part that says "March 2026, Stand Up"— I can't write anymore.
Because I suddenly realized that what I thought was "standing up" was actually just "not falling down." These two things are different.
And I, am not yet ready to tell myself what it's like to have truly stood up.
So I closed the article.
I stopped writing here. The rest of this was written when I reopened the file at the end of June.
June 13th, Times Square
The ninth day after returning from Puerto Rico, New York exploded.
On June 13th, the New York Knicks won the NBA championship.53 years later.
That night, I got off the subway at 33rd Street and went to a Manhattan bar with friends to cheer on Nick.
The game is over, and the entire street is filled with people wearing blue and orange jerseys – some are climbing lampposts, others are waving flags, hugging strangers, high-fiving police officers, yelling "Let’s go Knicks" to the night sky, and popping champagne while sitting on friends' shoulders.
The car honked until its horn was hoarse. All of Manhattan was trembling.
We walked to Times Square.
——June 13, 2026, early morning, that night New York waited 53 years for
When I was 19, I stood here looking up too. Surrounded by tourists from all over the world, I felt unbelievably small. I told myself, "Someday, I will make it here."
At 29 years old, I looked up at Times Square once again—but this time, I wasn't surrounded only by tourists. It was an entire city, a roaring celebration of New York.
And I am one of them.
—
I high-fived a drunk old New Yorker. I took a photo with a group of people I'd never met before. I yelled "Let's go Knicks" with strangers all over the street.
That night I realized—
I'm no longer that person in 2025 who walked from Hoboken into Manhattan and felt "this city is so close yet so far away."
I am not a tourist in this city. I'm no longer just an international student in this city. I am a part of this city.
—
The promise that New York City waited 53 years for was fulfilled tonight.
And the promise I made at 19, the one that took 10 years to fulfill—was also realized that night.
Arrived back home in Hoboken at three in the morning.
I turned on my computer and reopened the unfinished article from 6/4.
I finally know how to write the rest of it.
June 28: To My 19-Year-Old Self Standing in New York City for the First Time
Hi,
I know what you were thinking in Times Square at that moment.
You look at the neon lights and feel small. You feel like this city is too far away from you. You feel like you're just a kid from Taoyuan, with an academic aptitude test score of 49, and you haven't even lived in Taipei yet.
But I want to tell you—
In ten years, you'll return to New York.
Don't be a tourist, be a part of this city.
You will start a company in New York. You will have an office in Manhattan. You will live, work, make mistakes, get up, make mistakes again, and get up again in this city.
But this road will be 100 times harder than you think.
You will fall for the first time in 2017. You will lose 10 kilograms in New York in 2025. You will lose the person you thought would be with you forever. You will send out 1000 resumes with no response. You will want to give up on everything at your lowest point.
But you won't give up.
Because there's something about you – something you don't even know yet – calledUnwilling to lose to my own abilities.
This ability will allow you to slowly get up after every fall. It won't be elegant or cool; you'll be crawling as you fall.
But you'll get up.
—
And ten years later, today, June 28, 2026, my 29th birthday—
When the city of New York finally fulfilled its 53-year-old promise, when I could finally look up in Times Square without feeling small,
I am writing this article to tell you:
You did it.
To you who are in a slump
If you're reading this—
Perhaps you're preparing for an exam, an interview, or applying to school. Perhaps you're going through a breakup, losing your job, or losing someone you thought would be with you forever. Perhaps you open your banking app and look at your balance, wondering how you'll make it through next month. Perhaps you lie in bed at night and feel like it wouldn't matter if you didn't wake up tomorrow.
I want to tell you:
You will get up.
Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next month, maybe it will take longer.
But you will.
Because the most powerful ability of a person is not the ability to never fall. It is the ability to get back up after falling.
Perhaps it took a little longer to get up this time than last time. Perhaps the wound is deeper than last time. Perhaps when getting up, there's no longer that arrogance of "I'm the chosen one."
But you're still standing.
That's enough.
Postscript
As I write this, it is the early morning of June 28, 2026.
Outside is the Manhattan skyline, the buildings lit up like a glowing forest.
I don't know what will happen in the next 10 years.
Maybe I'll succeed, maybe I won't. Maybe the company I build will take off, maybe it won't. Maybe I'll build a team between NYC and Taipei, maybe it's just a dream I wrote in my business plan.
But I've learned one thing:
Life is not linear growth.
Life is about falling down, getting up, falling down, getting up again.
After every fall, you doubt if you'll ever be able to get up again.
Then you'll find—you still got up.
—
I want to stand in this world, in a very high place.
I have my own business. My own life. My own adventures.
I know this road - it will be lonely.
Perhaps I'll lose some more friends. Perhaps there will be more nights on the beach, alone, quietly facing the sea. Perhaps I'll be misunderstood, disliked, and left behind by many.
But I will always keep moving forward. It won't stop.
—
On June 28, 2016, at the age of 19, I set foot in the United States for the first time and told myself, "I must develop my career in New York in the future."
On June 13, 2026, at the age of 29, I stood in Times Square, watching as the championship that New York had waited 53 years for finally arrived— I truly became a part of this city.
June 28, 2026. Today, I'm sending this article out. To the 19-year-old me who made that promise. To the me who lost ten kilograms in 2025. To you, who are currently in some low point.
—
For the past ten years, I've used all my strength to connect these three June days.
Having walked for half my life, to return and still remember, it was all worth it.