Review of 2024

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January has flown by in a blink of an eye! While 2025 is already into its second month, it’s lunar new year today, so I decided to write a review of 2024.

Research

2024 was a year filled with deadlines after deadlines. From January 2024 to January 2025, I submitted three different papers a total of four times, went through four rebuttals, and had two papers accepted. The last one is currently under review.

Before August, I endured long periods without any publications and faced multiple rejections. While reading my diary, I found my advisor reassured me a lot during that time, telling me that I was doing well and shouldn’t worry too much about the results. I’m grateful for his support.

In August, I finally had two papers accepted. While the acceptance didn’t significantly change my daily life, they did boost my confidence and fueled motivation to push forward with other projects. The process of conducting research and writing papers can be a struggle, but in the end, the sense of contributing to the research field makes it worthwhile.

Just last week, I submitted another paper in a new research area. It tackles a new and different problem from the ones I’ve worked on before, while I tried to solve it based on system security background. This paper is a brave step into a new research area for me. I’m not entirely sure if the paper is convincing enough in this new field, but I’m proud to have successfully submitted it.

Conferences

I attended three international conferences: Black Hat at Las Vegas, CCS at Salt Lack City, and Hardware.io at Amsterdam. I’m proud of myself for successfully presenting my work at these conferences. It feels like I’m finally becoming a real researcher. These events also provided great opportunities to meet and network with other researchers.

Life

I started using Cambly, an online English tutoring service. It helped me a lot to improve my English communication skills. Cambly is just a normal English tutoring service, but it kind of forces me to take classes regularly, because it offers a certain number of classes a week, which disappear if I don’t take them. So far, I’ve met good tutors and had fun and helpful conversations with them.

I had LASEK surgery and can now see without glasses!

I practiced yoga regularly, which helped me improve my posture and build strength. I can now perform more challenging poses. I’ll definitely miss current yoga studio when I leave SNU next year, so I plan to spend the rest of the year practicing here as much as possible.

Last week, after submitting the paper, my lab members and I went for a dinner nearby. When I got out of the car, I accidentally jammed my thumb in the door. Thankfully, it wasn’t broken and I’m still able to type this post, but it was so painful and I’m still recovering. I also caught a cold right after that, as if my body had been waiting for the submission to get sick. It’s a recurring pattern for me to be ill after a deadline. It’s getting toucher as I get older 😢 😢. I need to exercise more to build up my strength and try to work ahead to avoid the last-minute rush (or learn to putting less effort into the work).

Preparing for the Next Step

I’ll be doing my phd defense this summer and starting the job hunt. At the end of 2024, I had an interview. My Cambly tutors were a huge help in preparing for general interview questions, although that interview was more about my research. One thing I realized is that promoting myself is quite challenging that I need to practice more.

I also had the opportunity to give a lecture at my advisor’s class. Teaching was one of the reasons I wasn’t sure about becoming a professor, but that experience turned out to be better than I expected, even fun. The students were attentive and asked many interesting questions. I’m not sure if I’d enjoy teaching every week for a semester 😅, but it was a good experience.

Goals for 2025

Research

  • Finalize the projects I’m currently working on and get them accepted.
  • Possibly start a new project from the ideas I’ve been brainstorming.

Life

  • Get up early and exercise regularly in the morning. This is the most efficient way to build strength and stay productive.
  • Keep a journal regularly.
  • Reduce snacks between meals. At the end of 2024, our lab had a visitor who spent the whole day with me. He only ate meals and almost never snacked. Spending time with him made me realize that I have snacks more than I thought and it’s possible to live without them!

Career

  • Actively search for a job.
  • Decide between Academia vs Industry vs Somewhere in between.

Submitting another paper in the first half of the year and focusing on job searching in the second half will be my main focus of 2025. Wish me luck!