Artificial Intelligence at OMSCS

I successfully completed this course in the Spring 2022 term. This is probably one of the more challenging courses you can take in the OMSCS program, and unfortunately, it is not a course that affords its students to produce a novel project that I can share here.

I was extremely excited to take this class, and by its own metrics, I performed well. However, I just didn’t enjoy this class as the teaching staff’s preoccupation with plagiarism and sink-or-swim mindset detracted from their ability to build an inclusive and welcoming learning environment.

The saving grace for this class was the Discord study group I formed, where we were allowed to have whiteboard-level conversations about our independent assignments. It was extremely helpful to bounce ideas off of one another and not feel so isolated in the distance learning program.

Triton Hacks 2022

Triton Hacks is a hackathon for San Diego high schoolers, with special attention to gaining participation from students in the underserved South Bay area. It’s organized by a student organization at UCSD called CS foreach. This was the second year for Triton Hacks, but the first year it was in person at UCSD!

CS foreach banner that says: "educate / empower / engage csforeach.ucsd.edu"

I had such a great time volunteering my time to help students with a variety of projects spanning from block-based Alice programming to Unity game development.

Last year, I was a bit more involved and even hosted a workshop on Postman and REST APIs, but I am learning to set boundaries and not overcommit since I am both working full time and attending graduate school. I was able to enjoy the volunteer experience while not burning myself out, and there were plenty of amazing workshop opportunities for students, including one on Computer Vision!

Students watching a presentation on the Applications of Computer Vision

I was excited to see some of my former CS students present and involved at Triton Hacks this year!