CSpotlight: Finding One's Community
Why did you choose to pursue a degree in computer science specifically at the University of Minnesota?
My passion for education has always been math. I did a program in middle school and high school called the University of Minnesota Talented Youth Mathematics Program (UMTYMP). Ever since then, I knew I wanted to do something related to math, but in middle school and high school I worked with so much math, I didn’t want to do that in university. I felt like I wanted to learn about math in a different way and do something math-adjacent. I came to the university because of the UMTYMP program and I also did PSEO at the U of M during my senior year in high school. It made the most sense to continue here because I already had credits.
As for specifically choosing data science, I originally didn't love computers like some other students, and I thought this was a way to channel my math knowledge into something that I thought would be useful to the world. After taking some computer science classes, I thought that this is something I want to do.
How did you become interested in computer science? What are your specific interests within the field?
My interest has always been problem-solving, which is a huge part of data science. As for my specific interests, I'm kind of dipping my toes in all the fields of data science. In a lot of my classes I have been doing machine learning work. I also did research for a couple of months and it was machine learning related. I did an internship last summer that was more computer science work than data work, and I did a bit of front-end and back-end code. Right now I kind of like doing all of it and not limiting myself to one area. As long as I’m learning something new, that's what I want to do. I think I’ll pick a special interest later on.
Congratulations on earning a Gold Scholar, CS&E Access Scholarship, and Lubrizol Corporation scholarship! How will this scholarship impact your academic and extracurricular work?
They have helped so much! I had been paying for most of my school and housing out of pocket. Even though I am in-state, expenses still add up. All of these scholarships have been helpful to me, especially to be able to continue with school and also to not have to spend so much time trying to make money. It means I can pursue more extracurriculars and academic opportunities.
Tell us more about your internship experiences.
I had an internship last summer with Boston Scientific. I was in their peripheral intervention division. It was a data science internship, specifically, I handled complaint data. After a product is released into the market, we analyze and recall it if there is a problem that happened in production. There are a lot of conclusions you can get from complaint data. I was handling the signaling program where if a product receives too many complaints compared to the sales, it'll signal and other departments would know if they should recall it later on. These programs require a lot of statistics work. There were a few different tests I had to run and that was something that I didn't learn in the classroom. We did a simulation that would predict product sales, which was straight Python code. Now I am doing something similar with react and more front-end development. I think it's really an all-around position. My team is a group of 10 and I was the only intern on the team, so they threw different products at me to see what I wanted to do the most or what they needed from me.
Are you involved in any student groups? What inspired you to get involved?
I started as an intern at The Korean Student Association (KSA). I am Korean and I have always wanted to find a Korean community at the university. A lot of the time it is hard to find a community with people who have similar experiences to me. KSA has been a great experience. I became a secretary during my sophomore year, because I liked the board and I liked throwing events and having other Korean students have a home on campus, even if it was just a club. This year I joined the Science and Engineering Student Board (SESBSCSB). I am the recruitment and retention co-director. The reason why I joined SESBSCSB was because I felt like a lot of students in computer science have a hard time finding community. I felt a little lost freshman year when I didn't know what to do in the beginning at a big university. I wanted to be a part of recruiting freshmen, and maybe see what I could do to help the entire computer science community. I feel like it was harder than it was supposed to be, because it's hard to make general initiatives and events that will cater to everyone individually and for the community. I think I just wanted to be a part of a bigger board and see how I can help out.
What do you hope to contribute to the computer science community at the University?
I love helping others. I was a TA for a bit and I help my friends if they need it. That's one of the things that makes me happy and I feel like that would be the most that I contribute to the CS&E community.
What advice do you have for incoming computer science students?
Take it slowly and don't stress out too much about what other people are doing for internships and research. As long as you take things at your own pace, you'll find things that interest you. You’ll find opportunities you’re interested in as long as you look for them. Don’t pressure yourself to go to the big companies.
What are your plans after graduation?
I’m currently planning to go to grad school for a data science-related field, but I’m still deciding when to start.