2026 Year-End Reflection: Beyond the Degree, AI Leverage, and Reclaiming Attention

Timeline Log: Drafted on October 24, 2026 (Living document — to be updated as 2026 wraps up)

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1. July 2026 — Wrapping Up at Curtin & The Reality of Credentials

2026 has flown by in the blink of an eye. Back in July 2026, I finally wrapped up my studies at Curtin University. Calling it “campus life” feels like a stretch—it felt much more like an extended online program. When lectures, exams, and even graduation formalities can all be completed behind a screen, it makes you wonder: is a traditional offline degree still strictly necessary?

The more I work in the real world, the clearer it becomes that a degree is little more than a ticket to your first job. It reminds me of the classic catch-22 in the Australian job market, where almost every role demands “local experience.” Employers simply want certainty—they need to know the person they hire is reliable and can actually deliver. Yet even with AI screening tools, verifying what a candidate can truly do takes enormous time and effort. So companies resort to a blunt filter: local work experience + local referees + local residency/working rights.

Beneath that high barrier is, fundamentally, protectionism for the domestic labor market. Whenever the barrier to entry for a role drops too low, cutthroat competition among applicants is inevitable—because the total number of open positions is always finite.

“Fortunately,” we live in the era of AI. A junior engineer can now use AI as leverage to build senior-level capabilities—or be squeezed out of the market entirely by it. As AI continues to advance, the Matthew Effect will only grow more pronounced. For those who haven’t yet completed their initial accumulation of capital and leverage, the window of time left may be narrowing fast.

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2. Fall 2026 (Aug – Oct) — First Semester at Georgia Tech & Slowing Down

My first semester at Georgia Tech is now nearly behind me. Honestly, both the academic atmosphere and the engineering resources at GT feel leagues ahead of Curtin. Then again, when a country can live comfortably just by exporting iron ore and natural resources, why go through the trouble of aggressively building out a high-tech ecosystem?

Compared with the first half of the year—when part-time work consumed my days from morning till night—the second half of 2026 has given me a surprising amount of breathing room. And since I finally have free time, the best thing to do with it is to take long walks outside and read more books—even if my September 2026 reading list was mostly a binge of tomb-raiding and antique-hunting novels :)

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3. October 2026 — Guarding Attention & Shifting How I Write Code

• Digital Minimalism: I’m deliberately keeping my distance from my phone, short-form videos, and social media feeds. Attention is the scarcest asset we have. Aside from truly important messages, I want to reserve uninterrupted blocks of time every single day for introspection and deep learning.
• From Typing Code to Directing AI: Lately, I rarely write boilerplate code by hand anymore—unless what the AI produces is genuinely awful, which happens less and less often. More often than not, when the output misses the mark, it’s because the prompt wasn’t framed precisely enough, or it simply needs a couple more iterative passes. With clear context and multi-turn refinement, AI already solves the vast majority of day-to-day implementation problems.

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📝 Original Chinese Notes (中文原稿 · 2026.10.24)

• [2026.07 - 2026.10] 毕业、就业门槛与 AI 马太效应：
  2026一眨眼就要结束了，今年7月也终于结束了在 Curtin 求学的生活，说是求学，更多的感觉像是在 online 上课，当考试、毕业都能在线完成的时候，传统的线下学位是否还是必须的呢？工作之后越发感觉到学历只是第一份工作的敲门砖，就跟土澳本地很多工作需要当地工作经验一样，用人单位需要确保招进来的人是可靠能干出活的，但是即便是利用 AI 来进行审核候选者的资料也是需要耗费大量时间，所以直接一刀切，所有求职者需要有本地工作经验和本地推荐人+本地身份。高门槛的背后其实是对本国劳动力市场的保护，当一份工作门槛足够低的时候，必然会导致求职者之间恶性竞争，因为总开放的职位总归是有限的。“幸好”这个时代有 AI，junior 可以借助 AI 来开发高级技能，也可以被 AI 逼迫得无工作可做，随着 AI 的发展，马太效应只会越来越明显，可能留给未完成资本原始积累的人的时间不多了。
  
• [2026.08 - 2026.10] GT 第一学期与九月闲暇：
  现在 GT 的第一学期基本上快过去了，GT 的氛围和资源体感上也比 Curtin 好一大截，谁让土澳本身靠卖矿就能衣食无忧，何苦再去费心费力发展高科技行业呢。今年下半年的空闲时间其实很多很多，不像上半年需要兼职去从早到晚消耗自己的时间，既然得闲了，就多多出去散步和看看书吧——虽然 9 月已经看了好几本盗墓古玩小说了 :)
  
• [2026.10] 注意力保护：
  手机、短视频、社交媒体还是尽量远离，保护好自己的注意力，除了特别重要的信息，尽量每天给自己留出充足的时间来内省和学习。
  
• [2026.10] AI 编程体感：
  最近基本上很少手动写代码了，除非 AI 写的实在太烂，但是这种情况很少出现，有时候其实是提示词没有写到位或者多让 AI 跑几轮就能解决大部分问题。