Biography: Hi! I'm a junior a UIUC and I'm excited to be a part of the new iSchool information science program. I can't wait to see what new experiences the iSchool can provide for me!
Why Information Sciences: I want to join information sciences because I think that data is the most interesting and important topic of my generation. When I see what we as a society can do with such a large amount of data amazes me, and yet I feel it’s almost impossible to imagine how much data is used. An example that comes to mind is how we have created artificial intelligence that can predict the weather with high accuracy by using as much past data as possible to try to match it up with current data. To me, analyzing data like this is the closest we can get to predicting the future. Other related examples are polling data being used to predict election results, previous sports data being used to create predictions of future games, and Amazon using data tied to an account to predict what you want to buy with eerie accuracy. Having the ability to predict the future like this is the closest I feel we can come to magic in real life. Not only do I find the ability to manipulate data on a grand scale magical, but I feel as if it is greatly underappreciated. I only have a couple of friends who feel the same way about data as I do, but when we start talking about the importance and use of data it can take hours to stop. We bounce around from newer data-centric events like UIUC’s Safer Illinois app and theorizing what the testing and location data can be used for and how it can be used to predict future infection rates and hot spots to talking about older data events that we feel haven’t been taken as seriously as they should’ve been such as the Equifax data breach. I feel like if more people saw data as I do there would be a much larger focus on data privacy and data would be seen as its own beast instead of just a component of the massive tech sector.
Involvement & Experiences: Small Business Technology Consultant Assistant, Camp Counselor, Volunteering, Programming
