Hello, I am a high school student passionate about data science and statistics. Click here to see the rest of my About Me page.
Basic understanding of HTML, CSS, Python, Java, and R.
Finished AP Statistics and AP Calculus AB. Currently enrolled in AP Calculus BC
Here are a few projects I've completed
Here are some of the field trips I've been on
The two most enlightening field trips that have cleared up my indecisiveness about my career are my field trips to Berkeley and Stanford. I went to Berkeley in early 2018 and I got to see more mechanical engineering type work. They showed me a basement workshop where not only do they shape and cut metals manually, but they also program computers to do it. We walked around some of the halls where I saw some of the classes they offered and I even met some enrolled students who gave information on how they were able to get into Berkeley and their work at Berkeley. Although I did find many of the heavy machinery very cool to watch and even cooler to use, I did not exactly identify with it as something I would like to do for the rest of my life. It seemed fun to do once, but not something I can imagine myself doing as a career. Through this trip, I learned that mechanical engineering is not the route for me.
On the other hand, at Stanford, the tour was much more planned. The tour guide gave us much of the history of Stanford and college life at Stanford, and when talking about the curriculums, she mainly talked about the computer science major that Stanford is famous for. She gave a personal anecdote including how she went out on a limb and tried taking the introductory course, thinking that she may fall in love with the subject as many others have, but for her, that did not happen. However, I already find computer science interesting and with a course like that, I would fall in love with it even more, and where better to learn computer science than in Stanford, the top college in computer science. Computer science is also a major component of data science, further adding to my interests.
I went on a field trip to a wastewater plant and I saw how water is cleaned and recycled. Although the smells were not too pleasing, I found interest in the methods they took to sanitize the water and separate each component of it. The buildings in the picture are called digesters, which digest the solids. The Zone 7 plant is able to recycle water, however, the public in the area were not pleased with the idea of drinking their own wastewater. There were two main interesting parts of the sanitation process that I enjoyed learning about. One of which was learning that the plant does not use reverse osmosis to clean their water because it creates water that is so clean, it's dangerous to drink. Water wants to be full of substances like salt and sugar, so if we drink it, the water will steal all of these substances from our body. Also, to kill some of the bacteria still lurking in the water at the end of the process, they cause them to mutate by exposing them to high amounts of radiation. Although this does not kill the bacteria, it stops them from being able to procreate, so by the time the water reaches the tap, the bacteria is long gone.
Prior to my field trip here, I heard a lot about the National ignition Facility (NIF) from a guest speaker that came to talk to my engineering class, as well as a program I participated in called Expanding Your Horizons. From these two places, I learned what NIF actually was, a place to experiment using very powerful lasers. The guest speaker talked about her job in teaching computers to find and identify different scratches on the lens used to magnify the laser and when I went there, I actually got to see the lasers and some of the glass they used to make the lenses. We saw the control center and revisited the idea of how experimentalists place a substance inside a container to see what happens to it when it is hit by all the lasers. This field trip was especially interesting for me since I had already learned about what NIF did and then I was able to see exactly where it all takes place. It was also interesting to see how many different jobs and fields are required just to maintain this laser.
Learning about the company Oracle was fun because it is used everywhere but often goes unnoticed by people who do not know about it. For example, the speakers talked about OCI, or the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, which many applications run on, including zoom. I also learned a lot about skills I would need in the workplace to become successful. Some of the main pieces of advice I got were to always highlight and sell my strengths in order to stand out from the crowd and to remember that every event is a learning experience that can be leveraged to succeed. I also learned that it is important to be able to articulate intellectually with others in a variety of fields. I'm glad I got the opportunity to get advice from some accomplished employees of Oracle and I will keep these advices in mind for future use.
By the time this field trip came, I had already visited LLNL multiple times and learned a lot about them. What I found interesting about this Job Shadow, however, was it was specific to the field of computing, which I plan on going into. All my other experiences with LLNL had been about chemistry, physics, or biology, and all specifically about conducting reseach. This Job Shadow allowed me to see the jobs about maintaining the super computers and developing the algorithms used to interpret and analyze the data gained from researching. I was able to learn about people's career paths and how they became involved with the field of their interest, which was really interesting.
Here are some of the influential speakers I've met
Aaron Pomerantz is a biologist who has traveled to rainforests and other wildlife areas for his work. During his talk, I learned that there is a kind of beetle that uses light to attract prey and that butterflies have scales. But that was only the biology side of his talk. He showed us many inventions that he uses on his trips that make his studies easier. The picture shows one of said inventions: a Next Generation Oxford Nanopore, which can be plugged into a computer with a USB drive and sequence genomes. One simply needs to insert a DNA strand into the nanopore and wait for the results to pop up onto the computer. Then, a data scientist can take this data and help the biologists make sense of it and use it efficiently. This opened my eyes to see that data science can be used in many different situations and that I can learn more about other subjects by having a job in data science.
Almost immediately, I identified with this speaker because he loves comic books and comic book movies just as much as I do. This speaker shows me that robotics can carry over into a career with many potential opportunities. After one of the worst nuclear meltdowns in history, Mr. Holliday had to make a robot that could survey the scene of the wreckage and find out how long it would take for the area to be safe enough for humans since it is filled with radioactive materials. This inspired me to join robotics, which I did soon after his visit. He also told us about his diverse working background, which also showed me that whatever I eventually choose to do, I still have a huge array of options and that I can visit many of them at some point in my life.
The most important idea I gained from this guest speaker's visit was not about his work in data science or his dissertation on hyperthermia as a cancer treatment, but that your major does not determine what you do for the rest of your life. Mr. Salloum began with a degree in biotechnology and is now working in data science. His presentation also exposed me to both fields that he worked in. First he focused on biotechnology, with a treatment method for cancer called Magnetic Nanoparticle Hyperthermia, which, in short, is the heating of a localized area with a tumor in order to kill the cancer cells. This is done by injecting the tumor with multiple nanoparticles of iron oxide to caused magnetic heating. His data science work was about data compression, making data smaller so it is stored more efficiently. This change of career field showed me that whatever I choose my degree to be in will not limit what I do for the rest of my life. I can use my knowledge to slowly learn about other fields to a point where I can apply the knowledge as a job.
From this speaker, I learned the importance of understanding how hardware works. In my Computer Science Class we learned some basics about how the internet works but I truly learned about its importance with Mr. Hightower's presentation. He talked about how he was put on a team to make sure a app would not crash when they streamed the Superbowl, since there would be more than a hundred million people watching the Superbowl. he talked about his entire experience in this project, the missteps and oversights, as well as how he and his team solved these problems. The main thing I found interesting is how large scale his project was, since it had to account for over a hundred million users. Now I see the importance of knowing how the internet and servers work, which I will make sure to remember whenever I am working on a project.
In the Engineering Academy at Dublin High School, I was able to connect with Vince Sanchez who is the Vice President of Operational Excellence at UnitedHealthCare. He has taught me different ways on gathering more information for whatever I want to learn about and how to carry myself in different career events, like networking meetings and interviews. Other aspects of this Mentorship program have allowed me to explore different fields of engineering, for example, I have met with Kamlesh Sangani who showed me his work on the Walmart Website summarizing the numerous comments and ratings into an easy, simple to read format for the users. This Mentorship Program has allowed me to develope several skills useful for when I enter the workforce.