spring quarter 2021
The UW Undergraduate Research Symposium is an opportunity for undergraduate students to present what they have learned through the research they are involved in to a greater audience. Projects from all disciplines are included, and interdisciplinary discourse is encouraged. All UW undergraduate students involved in research are encouraged to apply! I had the privilege of co-presenting at this year's symposium held on May 21, 2021. Our project was titled "Automatically Identifying People and Exploring Social Relations in the Svoboda Diaries". My role consisted of creating and presenting the attention grabber, introduction to the Svoboda Diaries, our research question, and the conclusion/next steps. Overall, I felt very lucky to have had the opportunity to be part of UW's largest research presentation event of the year, and it was so cool to see so many interdisciplinary research projects! One super interesting project was actually the image steganography project that was presented just before ours. I hope I can continue to be part of interdisciplinary research in the future. Click here to view our presentation! Click here to view the visualization for Assignment 1, designed from Seattle crime data
Click here to view Assignment 2, an exploratory data analysis of a dataset of hate crime data.
Click here to view Assignment 3, an interactive data exploration of datasets comparing internet use and urban rate across the globe.
I was really excited to take INFO 474 because it had been a struggle trying to register for this course. I had to wait until the very last registration period, and there were only a few spots open to non-majors. Although it was different than what I expected, I still enjoyed the class content overall. The most important thing I learned from this course was how to make design decisions regarding the creation of data visualizations--determining which type of graph to use, whether or not to include color, etc. Assignments 1 and 2 were completed individually, while 3 and 4 I completed with a partner. Most of this course were adapted from assignments from another course at UW, CSE 442. |
Despite the fact that I had only been on the Svoboda Diaries Research team for two quarters, Dr. Chen allowed me to present with SDP at the Canadian Society of Digital Humanities "Making the Network" conference. My role consisted of creating and presenting an introduction to network analysis. This was shown right before a Gephi tutorial with a Svoboda Diaries dataset, where participants were taught the basics of how to create a network from a dataset of nodes and edges from the diaries. Although it was virtual, the conference had many interesting presentations. It was organized and moderated in a format that allowed for lots of organic conversations between presenters and attendants. I am very thankful to been part of the presenting team, and I was also pleasantly surprised by the high level of interest in network analysis by attendees from a variety of backgrounds. This quarter, I took an Honors course about current applications of Artificial Intelligence. We covered the topics of deep fakes, the use of facial recognition, AI jobs, and more. It was a stimulating course that was mainly discussion-based with essay assignments, and I really appreciated the fact that Professor Freeman moderated discussions without inserting any of his personal biases towards the more controversial questions. I also appreciated being able to freely ask the deeper questions regarding societal implications of the rapidly changing technology. For the final assignment, we were tasked with writing a five page essay on an AI topic of our choice. I decided to write my essay on AI through the lens of Christianity. It was a perspective I was curious of exploring, and as a Christian, I wondered whether there would be new moral dilemmas presented with the proliferation of AI. You can view my final paper above, or by clicking the link here. |
This quarter ends with a big LIFE UPDATE! After much thought and reflection, I have made the decision to transfer from the University of Washington to the University of California, San Diego. I truly believed I would be spending all four years here at UW, but it seems God has different plans for me. It is definitely bittersweet. I've grown to love this school, love the people who surround me, and love the community I have grown into here. In other words, I have become comfortable here. But UCSD is a new chapter where my educational goals can be accomplished. I was not admitted to HCDE at UW, and after speaking to an advisor about my application, I was told that my grades were not the issue, but my essay did not demonstrate "why" I wanted to study HCDE. I'll link the essay here for my personal memories. At UCSD, I will be studying Cognitive Science, specializing in Design and Interaction. I'm very thankful for this door that God has opened for me, and pray that I am faithful to follow.
Financially, it's going to be a burden due to the out-of-state tuition, but I am confident in God's provision. He always gives exactly what I need at the perfect time. I'm excited, and I'm extremely grateful that I have parents who fully support me in this decision and transition.
Onto my reflection for this quarter! I spent the first half of the quarter less busy with normal classes, but very busy with the Svoboda Diaries Online Contest. My role was to create data visualizations from the answers submitted by contest participants. You can view an example of what some of these looked like here in the Week 1 Answers. Most of the visualizations I made were word clouds due to the nature of the data. I wrote functions in R to automatically create word clouds out of the contest data (data was in the form of a csv). The biggest challenge was implementing a way to automatically exclude typos, filler words, and odd symbols from the data. I woke up early each Saturday morning to complete these visualizations and send them out to the rest of the team to be posted on the SDP website.
During this quarter, I also took baptism classes with an Auntie from church who was actually the one who first started teaching baptism classes at the church! She has been teaching this class for many, many years. These took place Wednesday mornings at 9 am. It had been a resolution of mine in 2020 to get baptized, but since COVID-19, my plans had gotten delayed. I'm very thankful for the time this Auntie took out of her mornings to sit down and share in her biblical wisdom, as well as her personal testimony.
I didn't realize before it started, but this quarter is my last quarter at the University of Washington. I started this portfolio as a platform to fulfill my Honors Program requirement, but it has evolved into a space for me to reflect on the work I have accomplished and share intimately in my success and failures. Although I will no longer be at UW, I think I'll continue this portfolio to document my undergraduate journey at UCSD. To new adventures, ocean views, and sunny weather, I'll be back soon :)
Financially, it's going to be a burden due to the out-of-state tuition, but I am confident in God's provision. He always gives exactly what I need at the perfect time. I'm excited, and I'm extremely grateful that I have parents who fully support me in this decision and transition.
Onto my reflection for this quarter! I spent the first half of the quarter less busy with normal classes, but very busy with the Svoboda Diaries Online Contest. My role was to create data visualizations from the answers submitted by contest participants. You can view an example of what some of these looked like here in the Week 1 Answers. Most of the visualizations I made were word clouds due to the nature of the data. I wrote functions in R to automatically create word clouds out of the contest data (data was in the form of a csv). The biggest challenge was implementing a way to automatically exclude typos, filler words, and odd symbols from the data. I woke up early each Saturday morning to complete these visualizations and send them out to the rest of the team to be posted on the SDP website.
During this quarter, I also took baptism classes with an Auntie from church who was actually the one who first started teaching baptism classes at the church! She has been teaching this class for many, many years. These took place Wednesday mornings at 9 am. It had been a resolution of mine in 2020 to get baptized, but since COVID-19, my plans had gotten delayed. I'm very thankful for the time this Auntie took out of her mornings to sit down and share in her biblical wisdom, as well as her personal testimony.
I didn't realize before it started, but this quarter is my last quarter at the University of Washington. I started this portfolio as a platform to fulfill my Honors Program requirement, but it has evolved into a space for me to reflect on the work I have accomplished and share intimately in my success and failures. Although I will no longer be at UW, I think I'll continue this portfolio to document my undergraduate journey at UCSD. To new adventures, ocean views, and sunny weather, I'll be back soon :)