Recently I went on a trip to Boston and Montreal. Montreal holds a special place in my heart since it was where I was born, although I only lived there for two years. So it’s a city I like to romanticize. I’ve never lived in Boston but I’ve visited several times. X has never been there even though he grew up in NYC so we decided to tack it onto the beginning our trip.
I’ve been on a film kick lately and haven’t shot much digital. All the color is shot in Fuji 200, and the black and white is TriX and HP5.
Boston Seaport and Commons Park
One of the things I wanted to do the most there was visit the MIT and Harvard campus in Cambridge. Visiting made me reflect on my own experiences in college and all the people I knew from high school who went to these schools.
MIT Campus
As I mentioned earlier I’ve been going through the job search process and there’s a lot of parallels between that and the college application process. Both grueling unpleasant processes. While you’re applying you try not to get too emotionally attached to the company you’re applying for, but it’s hard not to start imagining yourself working there. Then boom, comes the rejection, usually a templated email from the recruiter after days of anxiety. The recruiter is super warm beforehand and talking about how they’re going to support you in this journey and be your advocate, etc. up until the moment you don’t perform and they’ll drop you like a hot potato. Haha I’m not bitter, I swear!
Harvard Campus
When I was senior applying to colleges I only applied to two places, because I was young and dumb (now I am only one of these things). I probably worked much harder this job search cycle than during my college application process. The other parallel is there are “prestigious” universities as well as “prestigious” companies to work for.
He didn’t want to keep spending $40+ on lobster rolls and instead bought a whole lobster at the supermarket
I wish prestige doesn’t matter but it does. Working or studying at one of these places offers great benefits, particularly for resume branding and networking. Both of these are especially important now, since every job posting is going to get auto spammed with hundreds of applicants. I live in a bubble where most of the people I know and my friends work at, or have worked at, well known companies. But I have noticed a pattern where I feel like Seattle has become the definitive #3 tech city, behind NYC and SF. All the companies I’ve talked to have offices in SF and NYC, but never Seattle. Or if they do have an office in Seattle, it’s their third or more office expansion after those two cities. This is excluding the few well known companies that are based in Seattle, like Amazon and Microsoft. There’s a few exceptions but for a lot of smaller companies this is the trend I’m seeing.
Admiring the old houses in Salem, MA
Anyways I digress. If you’ve known me over the past several months you’ve probably heard me talk all about the job market. It was my entire personality for a while, unfortunately. Probably because it was literally the only thing I was doing for a while. I dropped hobbies and stressed about social events that I wanted to attend because I was afraid I would lose valuable study time that would affect my interview performance.
So onto Montreal. I think it’s a very underrated city to visit. It’s got a great food scene and I think it’s the most European city in North America. But obviously I’m not biased. I love walking down the streets and hearing people speak French and feeling like I’m living in Europe. Everyone who lives there is bilingual, much like in Europe how most people can speak English. It’s convenient when English is your first language and it makes it much easier to get by without learning a second language. This has pros and cons.
The Top of Mount Royal in Montreal
Montreal has a great food scene. Everytime I go there I buy a bunch of Montreal bagels to take home.
I’ve gone there 3-4 times in the past decade or so and I feel like at this point I’m just visiting the same things over and over again. It feels weird to visit a city at that cadence, I feel like I’m not quite a complete tourist but I haven’t lived there nearly long enough to truly feel familiar with the city. To visit a familiar sight is like to remember a dream, it triggers some vague memory of the last time I was there a couple of years ago. It makes me feel old and nostalgic for the past.
