CSpotlight: Getting Involved
Why did you choose to study computer science specifically at the University of Minnesota? What made you decide to minor in digital media studies and interdisciplinary design?
I chose to study computer science at the University of Minnesota since the program is well accredited and the campus is close to where my family lives. I also liked how the campus is right next to the center of Minneapolis, as I wasn’t a fan of college towns. I chose to pursue minors in design since I’ve always been interested in the field, and I wanted to find more ways to integrate these ideas into computer science.
How did you become interested in computer science? How are you planning to incorporate design into computer science?
I became interested in computer science through a research class at my high school; in this class, you were able to pick your own project topic and research that throughout the entire academic year. Without knowing anything about how to code, I decided to pursue a project involving human-computer interaction and augmented reality—the goal of my project was to expand on previous research in the field by creating an iOS mobile application that teaches improvisational skills on a bass guitar using augmented reality. I chose this project since I was already interested in music and had been playing many instruments for a while, but at the time I had recently started playing bass guitar and had been struggling to find any resources for learning improvisation techniques.
Overall, I really fell in love with the process and how I could take my designs and bring them to life with code. Since then, I’ve been really passionate about being involved in each step of the process (both the design and the coding aspects) and I want to continue pursuing this path as I further my career.
Congratulations on receiving the 2021 Hopper Dean Scholarship! How has the scholarship impacted your academic career?
The scholarship alleviated a lot of my stress surrounding money. It has allowed me to focus more on the academics I want to pursue instead of worrying as much about my financial situation.
Tell us more about your internship at Jamf. What kind of projects did you work on?
At Jamf, I worked on iOS and macOS development for enterprise-level software. The highlight of the internship was working on the complete redesign for their iOS Self Service mobile app. I built both the search page and the notifications page, while others on the team focused on the navigation pages and home page. I was the only intern on the team I was placed with, and it was interesting to see how the software development lifecycle worked at a larger company. I learned a lot of valuable skills regarding iOS development, and I’m excited to take what I learned this past summer to my next summer internship at IBM.
How did you get involved with research working with Dr. Lana Yarosh? Tell us more about the research that you worked on!
I started working with their lab in Fall 2021. I’ve joined a PhD candidate and one other undergraduate student in working on a project building a technology probe for auditing the ORES edit quality model on Wikipedia. I’m going to continue working on this project in Spring 2022, and I may potentially be starting my own project as well.
What advice do you have for incoming computer science students?
The most important advice I could give to incoming computer science students is to join clubs that are meant to support you. During my first semester of college I was not in any clubs, and I really struggled with not being able to see myself represented both in the field and in my classes. Navigating computer science as a minority in the field is hard, and, unfortunately, that kind of representation in the field is not given to you—you have to seek it out.
Some of the groups I’ve been involved with and help run now are ACM-W (Association for Computing Machinery - Women), oSTEM (Out in STEM) , and the QSCC (Queer Student Cultural Center). All of these groups have really helped me feel more included both at the University and in the field of computer science as a whole.
What are your plans after graduation?
I’m undecided right now, I’m deciding between pursuing a PhD and going into industry. I’ll likely jump into industry right after graduation and wait a year before deciding if I want to go the PhD route.
Are there any additional experiences you did that you would like to highlight in the article?
I’ve been working as an independent contract software engineer for a startup healthcare company called DOCSI since this past summer. Some of the work I’ve done here involves both iOS app software development and user interface design mockups. DOCSI aims to streamline procedural case preparations at hospitals, while also tracking item utilization to identify and eliminate key areas of waste; this is done through a dynamic iOS mobile app that presents vital information about various cases in real time.