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 :)