Greetings! I’m Otar Jintchvelade, soon-to-be CS (Computer Science) undergrad and hopefully a successful software architect in a couple of years. This might or might not be my final blog at ELTE, and I will try to make it extra interesting. However, to give you more context, you can check out other blogs of mine.
Welcome to Part 2. Part 1 was about becoming an engineer. This one is about everything else that made ELTE worth it.
Thesis mode: building something I actually care about
By the time I finished my thesis work, it had become one of those phases where your brain is constantly running, even when you’re not at your laptop. My thesis is titled: Intelligent Time Management Through Context-Aware Automation
I’m building an AI assistant application with a calendar UI (User Interface). The big idea is simple: calendars today are mostly passive. They show events, maybe send reminders, and then you’re on your own. But our lives are not static, and managing time is not just about seeing a schedule. It’s about making smart decisions in the middle of a busy day.
My goal is to build a system that understands context and helps you manage your time with less stress. Think of it like a helpful teammate that sees what’s coming, understands your workload, and supports you in keeping your week realistic and healthy.
If you’re in tech and reading this, this paragraph is for you:
I’m using the OpenAI API with structured outputs, because I want the assistant to produce predictable, clean responses that can safely drive actions in the app instead of just generating “free text.” The frontend is React, the backend is Django, and I’m trying to keep the whole thing clean and scalable. One of the best pieces of advice I got from a colleague was to do proper architecture early, so I modelled the system using C4-style diagrams. That helped me think clearly about components, boundaries, and how data flows through the assistant, the calendar UI, and the automation layer. Basically, I’m building it in a way where future me won’t hate current me.
And for the non-tech readers: the simple version is that I’m building something that helps you stop fighting your own schedule. Something that can take the pressure off your brain when your day is full and help you focus on what matters instead of constantly worrying about what you might be forgetting.
Friends who turned studying into memories
If I’m being real, the academic side is only half of what made ELTE special. The other half is the people.
I made friends here that I truly trust. The kind of friends you build during hard weeks, when you’re exhausted, and you still sit together and push through. We studied so much together that it’s hard to separate “friend time” and “study time.” I remember we had studied so much for some exams, we found ourselves going crazy around 5 am, staring at each other and laughing about it. Sometimes it was library sessions, sometimes it was late-night problem solving, sometimes it was just sitting with laptops open, silently suffering, but together.
But it wasn’t only studying. Some of the best memories are the simple ones. Movie nights at my apartment, the kind where everyone arrives tired and then somehow we end up laughing for hours. Getting THE burgers at Kálvin tér after, and our classic Vietnamese spot near Jaszai Mari Ter, where we’ve hung out so much it feels like Pho has been part of our routine. Those places hold stories now. Not just food.
Final semester reality: tired, but grateful
Now that I’m in the final semester, I am not afraid to say that it is a bit intense. I work in tech, teach at academia, write a thesis on the side, do sports at least 3 times per week, spend time with loved ones and live life, all at the same time. There are days when I’m honestly tired in a deep way, like you wake up and your brain is already running.
But here’s the thing. This is what I used to dream about. And I love to remind myself this one thing: “Not everyone is lucky enough to have this many opportunities in life, it’s such a privilege to go to bed at night feeling tired, knowing that I did all I could and I can be proud of the person I am becoming” That dream used to be a future version of me and now I’m living inside it.
So yeah, it’s tiring. But it’s also a big opportunity and a rare one. And I’m grateful I get to experience it. ELTE helped me become more than a student. It helped me become the kind of person who can handle pressure, share knowledge with others, build things with 0s and 1s and still stay connected to people along the way. To ELTE, thank you!
