Hi, there. I am a third year student in a second degree computer science program (BCS). My first degree, like many others in the same program, has nothing to do with computer science, or science in general. I graduated with a social work degree from a law school in my hometown Shanghai. In my senior years, I worked as a project coordinator in the sales and training department of AstraZeneca, a pharmaceutical company who happened to be going through business expanding during my internship. As a result, we coordinators had to deal with a large number of file confirmations with new employees all around the country; a lot of time was spent on making sure the employees filled in the right information or properly completed the form. Back then, I didn’t have any background in programming, however I had the general idea that it’s something that can help with repetitive tasks. After some searching online, I run into applications of Visual Basic with Excel macro, and applied pieces of code to our work, which turned out to be efficient at preventing unexpected user inputs. This might be the start of my interest in computer science, or to be more specific, programming.

Now I am still attracted to task or process optimization in all aspects of life, with a general interest in creating user experience oriented applications. However until this point of my major study I still feel it without adequate experience for me to decide on my specializations. Could it be AI, computer system, back-end service, front-end web design, or database administration? In my last internship with a bioinformatics group, I created a web application to help automate the manual review process of DNA samples where I got hands-on experience with applying some concepts learned from class. I wish to have more opportunities to explore all cycles of development in the near future.

I love playing basketball since a young age, although this can’t be considered as academic or professional interest, and the hobby has never gone beyond a few recreational games now and then. I would love to bring what I have learned in sports, improving your skills through enough practice, to this writing class.