LAURA GAO
Who?
- I love the pain of striving towards my goals.
- I'm against inadequate equilibria
- A Stoic. "If you regard things which are in the power of others to be your own... you'll have cause to lament" (Enchiridion 1)
Ok but principles are just are flowery words, what do you do?
- Making films. I'm married to After Effects.
- Making websites (here's one)
- Quantum software/research intern @ Zapata Computing (paper will be published soon)
- Design/art (lmk if you want to see a portfolio. for now, here's a singular comic I drew.)
- Writing. Narrative, argumentative, poetry, expository. More writing samples are hidden in links in the "Who?" section.
Those projects seem to be from months ago. What are you actually doing now?
- Writing college applications (until Jan 1)
- That's it. I focus best when I have 1 priority at a time that I can fully devote myself to. I try to maximize Deep Work.
You don't seem very impressive.
Gosh, this is what identity capitalism is gonna make me do? Fine. I'll brag.
- Selected as 1 of 100 people to be an Atlas Fellow, receive a $50k scholarship, go on an all-expenses-paid 2-week trip
- Self-taught full-stack developer. Didn't take webdev courses beyond HTML/CSS, just figured stuff out as I build projects
- Directed the filming + editing of a two-hour video recording of a school concert. 150+ hours of work
- Self taught at filmmaking too. 3D animation and visual effects and everything else
- Learnt French from A2/B1-ish to C1 level in 4 months (also self-taught)
- Self-studied quantum mechanics at 15 and got a softeng internship @ quantum computing company
nvm. this is a drain on my soul. ∄ no more bragging on any other section of this website.