Victories

This is a document that will contain the victories that I've had, things that I'm proud of. It will contain both major and minor victories.

Checkout my failures as well!

Victories

February 2026: I am going to commit my career to 'make the world go well in light of AGI'. I applied to MATS a week late in 12 hours. I applied and went to EAG SF 2026. I worked with a researcher on a project by asking for it. January 2026: I wanted to be self-employed and I made my own money being self-employed for the first time. January 2026: Moved to San Francisco Bay Area alone. Got a 3 month lease without a specific plan to explore and figure things out. December 2025: Completed BS/MCS degree with a 4.0 GPA. This semester took CS598JH Text Mining with LLM, CS598HGE HCI applied to Games and Education, CS527 October 2025: Started my newsletter, systems for Second Brain September 2025: Kicked off the Longevity Biotech Fellowship, solo-traveled to Spain. August 2025: Became a research assistant for TIMAN August 2025: Started the Masters of Computer Science degree program UIUC. August 2025: Solo-traveled the bay area for 2 weeks. August 2025: Completed my internship, got highly positive feedback from managers. July 2025: My team placed first at [[chicago-startup-weekend]]! June 2025: I sky-dived! I was completely terrified May 2025: I completed my undergraduate degree requirements with a 4.0. May 2025: I went to a party felt extremely confident, I was an accidental rizzler, I made people laugh and felt connected. April 2025: I stopped my addictive phone usage and consumption! April 23rd 2025: I gave my speech on lifelogging and I spoke clearly. April 25th 2025: I ran and completed a marathon! Spring 2025: I did salsa classes and got out of my comfort zone. Spring 2025: I won a dance competition at the Zagłoba bal. Spring 2025: I gave my ice breaker speech for toastmasters Spring 2025: Declared myself President of SIGAIDA and successfully ran engaging meetings Winter 2024: Ran 17.5 miles! Winter 2024: Ran a half-marathon in 2:28 hours after waking up at 4:45 and traveling home with 2 weeks of training. Fall 2024: Zagloba club I went outside my comfort zone and did karaoke, I also danced for them for Wigilia. Fall 2024: Started being an undergraduate research assistant Fall 2024: Project manager for Universum Fall 2024: 4.0 GPA when taking 6 computer science courses, 3 graduate courses, 3 other cs courses, 21 credit hours. Machine Learning for Signal Processing, Machine Learning for Bioinformatics, Advanced Computational Topics in Robotics, Wireless IoT, Numerical Methods, and Ethics for Computer Science. Summer 2024: After break-up and being burnt out, I gained weight to 208 lbs. I was visibly fat. I then lost weight and got down to 192 lbs before college started. I did this in a month and a half from fasting and discipline. Summer 2024: I took 12 credit hours over the summer (Data Visualization, Programing Languages and Compilers, ANTH 105, and JJC HIST 172), while working a full time job (40+ hours/week) at Argonne National Labs Spring 2024: 4.0 GPA taking 18 credit hours, 5 CS courses + 1 psyc course. CS446, 341, 374, 361, 222, and PSYC 250 Fall 2023: I self studied for Calc 3, Comp Sci 1 & 2, Linear Algebra, Discrete Math and passed the proficiency exams. For the Comp Sci 2 proficiency exam I was going to give up but I had 8 minutes left in the exam and just tried something I didn't think was going to work and passed the exam by 4%. I passed Discrete Math by studying for a week straight. Spring 2023: In one year, I studied for AP Bio, AP Calc BC, AP Physics C, AP Comp Sci A & Principles, AP French. I got a 5 on all of them (except for principles). Spring 2023: Made it to the world championships for VEX Robotics Spring 2023: Got accepted into UIUC for Computer Science Spring 2023: Lead my high school's ESRP team. A girl asked for my instagram after I presented our project. Spring 2022: Was in Orchesis and performed in front of school as the only boy in my group. Spring 2022: For my FIRST Tech Challenge team I was the lead programmer and our team got the "highest scoring rookie award" in Illinois. Spring 2022: Got an internship as a software developer intern at WM International. Summer 2020: I started reading self-help books, "How to Win Friends and Influence People", "Mastery", "The Magic of Thinking Big". Spring 2020: I taught myself how to program in Python and made my first project https://github.com/MattHandzel/findValueOfInvestmentsOverTime Spring 2019: I lost around 40 lbs before high school, and continued to lose weight until I hit my lowest of 145 lbs during water polo of spring 2020. <2017-2019>: I started thinking for myself and got out of my born-into religion.