This quarter, I applied for a research position with the Svoboda Diaries Project. Although it has only been one quarter, I truly feel as though I have learned so much already! I hope this artifact will be helpful for other UW Honors students seeking opportunities to fulfill their Honors Program experiential learning requirements or other undergraduate students in general, seeking to engage in more hands-on learning opportunities outside the classroom.
Selecting an Experience + Tips
- UW Expo - I used this database to explore different research opportunities on campus, and to learn how to apply to be a part of those opportunities. In the first and only one I applied to, I heard back in less than 24 hours and scheduled an interview where I got to speak with the professor (Dr. Chen) overseeing the research team, and we discussed my interests. She later emailed back with her thoughts on which sub-team involved projects that would best align with my interests, based on both my resume and our conversation.
- Letter of Interest - I had never written one of these before, and I'm not even sure if this is the proper way to write one. However, I have linked it here in case anyone is curious about what I wrote.
- Curiosity - I found that this is more important than having all the relevant skills/experiences under your belt. You don't necessarily need to know how to solve a problem immediately--it's just as important to know how to ask questions about a given problem, and how to ask good questions that will guide you forward in knowledge.
- Interdisciplinary - If you don't know where to start when selecting an experiential learning activity, start by reflecting on what you like to do, and what you are good at/want to be good at. Something you enjoy, and something related to your major/career goals. In my case, I knew I loved stories--history & humanities, but I also loved the logic aspect of coding and working with data. The position I found with the Svoboda Diaries Project (SDP) encapsulated both of these interests. SDP is a historical preservation project, involving the transcription of the real diaries of Joseph Mathia Svoboda from the late 19th century, and my research position involved more technical work as a part of the Network Analysis team.
Experiential Learning Application
Summarize your proposed experiential learning activity, including the primary focus of your activity, your intended actions, and the expectations of your supervisor and/or organization/partners.
In my experiential learning activity, I will be a UX/UI research intern with the Svoboda Diaries Project. The Svoboda Diaries are a collection of over 40 years of life, politics, and trade on the Tigris from 1862-1908 documented by steamship worker Joseph Svoboda. SDP is the research and digital humanities project behind this. I will be working on applying natural language processing methods to parse through diary text and explore people and social relationships across the diaries. I will also be performing qualitative data analyses and taking on a variety of tasks as needed within the team. The expectations of my supervisor are that I dedicate at least 6 hours per week to SDP work (implied by the 2 credit independent study research credits I am taking) and attend the weekly team meeting.
Explain how your activity demonstrates the values of the Honors Program Experiential Learning area you selected. Rather than reiterating our definition, outline how your activity embodies this definition.
I will be a part of an extensive digital humanities research project that is actively working to preserve cultural heritage and make historical texts more accessible. I will not only be part of the research that the Svoboda Diaries Project is doing, but I will also have a unique opportunity to expand my global awareness as I interact with a real piece of history. Behind SDP is also a diverse group of students I will be able to engage with in intentional and intellectual conversation, as well as Drs. Annie Chen and Selim Kuru, who I will be able to learn closely from as necessary. In this way, I will be involved in a community that fosters lifelong learning.
How and why did you select this engagement? What skills or experiences do you hope to gain from it?
I applied for this research position after finding it on the UW Undergraduate Research Program Database. I was immediately interested because this opportunity was one I found to be truly interdisciplinary. It combines my interest in data science/technology with my fascination of history, and I was pleased to discover that I would have the flexibility to work on sectors of the project that I personally found stimulating. I hope to learn more about natural language processing and machine learning algorithms, as well as data analysis in general. I also hope to gain more experience working in a heterogenous team, and improve my problem solving and logic skills.
How does this activity connect to your concurrent or past coursework? How does it speak to your broader education goals and experiences?
After taking a variety of technical classes like CSE 142/143 and INFO 201, I knew that I was interested in data science. I also knew that the humanities classes I enjoyed were HSTAA 337 and LING 200. As a research intern for SDP, I will be working at the intersection of these different disciplines. Natural language processing is something that I have always had interest in, but never had the chance to engage with due to its complexity and my limited experience. At SDP, I will be able to garner hands-on experience with it. Still uncertain of my professional goals, this activity will allow me to explore many of my passions simultaneously. It will also serve as a guide for me to make the most of my learning in these next three years at UW.
How will your activity contribute to the larger goals of the organization/your partners?
I am just one piece in a vast network of people, but my participation will hopefully contribute to the availability of more diaries on the Svoboda Diaries Project website. My input and involvement will supplement the team with an additional perspective which will be crucial in evaluating the usability of the website and improving user experience. SDP is a very special historical collection that members of academia will find useful and valuable. I will be working with NLP, but I will also be stepping up to a variety of tasks within the UX/UI team as needed, all of which contributes to the ultimate goal of making the Svoboda Diaries accessible and enjoyable for the world.
In my experiential learning activity, I will be a UX/UI research intern with the Svoboda Diaries Project. The Svoboda Diaries are a collection of over 40 years of life, politics, and trade on the Tigris from 1862-1908 documented by steamship worker Joseph Svoboda. SDP is the research and digital humanities project behind this. I will be working on applying natural language processing methods to parse through diary text and explore people and social relationships across the diaries. I will also be performing qualitative data analyses and taking on a variety of tasks as needed within the team. The expectations of my supervisor are that I dedicate at least 6 hours per week to SDP work (implied by the 2 credit independent study research credits I am taking) and attend the weekly team meeting.
Explain how your activity demonstrates the values of the Honors Program Experiential Learning area you selected. Rather than reiterating our definition, outline how your activity embodies this definition.
I will be a part of an extensive digital humanities research project that is actively working to preserve cultural heritage and make historical texts more accessible. I will not only be part of the research that the Svoboda Diaries Project is doing, but I will also have a unique opportunity to expand my global awareness as I interact with a real piece of history. Behind SDP is also a diverse group of students I will be able to engage with in intentional and intellectual conversation, as well as Drs. Annie Chen and Selim Kuru, who I will be able to learn closely from as necessary. In this way, I will be involved in a community that fosters lifelong learning.
How and why did you select this engagement? What skills or experiences do you hope to gain from it?
I applied for this research position after finding it on the UW Undergraduate Research Program Database. I was immediately interested because this opportunity was one I found to be truly interdisciplinary. It combines my interest in data science/technology with my fascination of history, and I was pleased to discover that I would have the flexibility to work on sectors of the project that I personally found stimulating. I hope to learn more about natural language processing and machine learning algorithms, as well as data analysis in general. I also hope to gain more experience working in a heterogenous team, and improve my problem solving and logic skills.
How does this activity connect to your concurrent or past coursework? How does it speak to your broader education goals and experiences?
After taking a variety of technical classes like CSE 142/143 and INFO 201, I knew that I was interested in data science. I also knew that the humanities classes I enjoyed were HSTAA 337 and LING 200. As a research intern for SDP, I will be working at the intersection of these different disciplines. Natural language processing is something that I have always had interest in, but never had the chance to engage with due to its complexity and my limited experience. At SDP, I will be able to garner hands-on experience with it. Still uncertain of my professional goals, this activity will allow me to explore many of my passions simultaneously. It will also serve as a guide for me to make the most of my learning in these next three years at UW.
How will your activity contribute to the larger goals of the organization/your partners?
I am just one piece in a vast network of people, but my participation will hopefully contribute to the availability of more diaries on the Svoboda Diaries Project website. My input and involvement will supplement the team with an additional perspective which will be crucial in evaluating the usability of the website and improving user experience. SDP is a very special historical collection that members of academia will find useful and valuable. I will be working with NLP, but I will also be stepping up to a variety of tasks within the UX/UI team as needed, all of which contributes to the ultimate goal of making the Svoboda Diaries accessible and enjoyable for the world.
Final Reflection
As I began my work this quarter with the Svoboda Diaries Project, I had a few goals. First, I hoped to be able to learn about natural language processing. Second, I hoped to be able to garner hands-on experience working within a research team. Last, I hoped to be able to develop a better understanding of my professional goals. Throughout this quarter, I believe all of these goals have been met in some way, and I am excited for the work I will be continuing into the next quarter. Not only did I learn more about natural language processing, but I also got to observe high level overviews of the NLP project in progress by peers where complex networks of social relationships in the diaries were created and analyzed. I was also introduced to the NLP pipeline, where I spent most of the quarter familiarizing myself with the corpus and modifying existing code to fix problems regarding diary entry splitting. It had been years since I had worked with Python and I'd never worked with Regex before, so although it took me some time, I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to make changes to an existing function and even write my own new function to resolve issues in the end. I was especially appreciative of Dr. Chen's trust and patience with me throughout the process; she allowed me to work directly inside the existing code, and she was understanding and helpful when I was confused or had challenges. Because of this hands-on, problem-solving environment she provided me, I was able to learn how to write and use Regex expressions in Python and write effective code to parse through the text for relevant matches. The dynamic of the SDP team also allowed me to exercise my presentation skills every couple of weeks and be included in many interesting discussions. I especially enjoyed the All-Team meeting where both the Content and UX/UI teams came together and shared recent progress. I also came away from this quarter with a better understanding of my interests, which will allow me to choose more focused classes and seek out relevant opportunities as I pursue my professional goals. Ultimately, I have learned so much this quarter as part of the Svoboda Diaries Project team! I am very grateful to have this opportunity to simultaneously learn and be mentored, and I am very excited to advance my knowledge of natural language processing this next quarter.
My slides from my first SDP team meeting presentation, summarizing my project of the quarter.