On this day exactly a year ago, I went to IC Hack at Imperial College London and, on a total whim, decided to vlog it. I didn’t realize that one video would change the entire course of my YouTube channel—going from random holiday vlogs getting ~100 views to day-in-the-life and software engineer vlogs that thousands of you actually cared about. Coming back to Imperial for IC Hack 23 (this time not as a student, but basically as staff through friends sponsoring) hit me way harder than I expected. Being back with friends I’ve known for over four years made me reflect on how fast everything moved: early 2022 I was still a student staying up late finishing coursework and cramming for exams. Then I graduated, moved out of my student flat, flew to Chicago for training for my software engineering job, took a quick grad holiday in Korea, and came back to London to move into a new apartment and start full-time work. The tradeoff was real—less time to film, so my uploads dropped to about once a month—but I also started pushing outside my comfort zone with new video ideas. If you’re a student, I want this to be proof that life can look completely different in a year; if you’ve already graduated, I think you’ll find it painfully relatable.