My Perspective
If you're not looking up, you probably won't see me. No, it's not because I'm tall; I'm actually quite short! The thing is, I'm always climbing - rocks, trees, playgrounds - and I love to explore, whether it's navigating novel places, approaching new ideas, or just looking for new ways to see things I already know.
As an MIT student, I've found that among the myriad of things I've tried, two have stuck with me: software engineering/design, and education. The first: a way to satisfy my innate hunger to solve problems. The second: a way to spread my desire to explore and learn, by igniting the spark of curiosity in others. The best moments happen when I finish deploying a system that I designed from scratch, and see it work in ways that I could not have imagined - a system that could be software related, or educational.
My Interests
Education
In January 2016, I went to Korea to introduce underprivileged high schoolers to EECS. I often tell people that I went to teach; but in truth, I went to learn. When I teach, I learn so many different ways to think and ways to be a better leader. I also get to spread the love of science, discovery, and exploration!
For a more in-depth look at my interest in education, please refer to the DynaMIT section below.
AI
A CS topic that I am currently learning more about is artificial intelligence and the development of intelligent-seeming systems. To that end, I'm taking a class in artificial intelligence, and another class in computer vision.
In the near future, I hope to join a lab at MIT working on related problems in order to learn even more.
Art
Although my favorite medium is scratchboard (see above), I dabble in many other types of fine art, mixed art, digital art, and performing arts: I use pencil, charcoal, watercolor, spraypaint, color pencil, and clay; cardboard, transparency, ribbons, wood, plasic, and glass; Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, and Adobe Premiere Pro; my vocal chords (singing), my body (dancing), and a combination of both (acting).
Design and creativity is an integral part of who I am.
DynaMIT
Director, Board Member, Mentor
STEM outreach for underprivileged middle schoolers
DynaMIT is a program that works to ignite the STEM interests of local, underprivileged middle schoolers by holding free programs full of fun, hands-on activities! My role in DynaMIT has evolved over the years: I started out as a mentor, working with my students to guide them through activities in programming, biology, engineering, etc. Though the role was fairly short, it made me feel as though I had finally found my home at MIT, both doing what I loved and surrounding myself with these amazing, fun, people who felt the same way I did.
During the next year, I became a Board member, responsible for writing the camp curriculum and coordinating logistics. I worked on implementing more engineering challenges; ones that made students think about things like communication issues and balancing constraints.
And this year, I will be directing the program; I'm excited to achieve my goal of taking our old curriculum (which consists of almost all original ideas), and releasing it on the web so that parents who don't speak a lot of English, after-school program coordinators, or anyone else, could easily run mini programs like DynaMIT with their kids!