After years of work at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, I graduated this past spring. I got to experience and learn at lot at UMass and will be looking back on it with rose-colored glasses. I had the opportunity to continue my studies and do a masters degree at UMass in computer science. Due to a program offered by the university, and my desire to join industry quickly, I opted for their accelerated Master’s program. This required that I take graduate courses that were to be stripped from my undergraduate transcript and put onto my graduate transcript. Interestingly, most of the courses I ended up taking circa fall 2021 - spring 2023 were heavily skewed towards machine learning systems and data science but what I’ve ended up enjoying in industry is working with embedded systems and hardware.
I took a number of courses that were heavily focused in theory (Algorithms for data science, Indep. Study, Quantum Information Systems, Cryptography) and some more practice oriented courses (Machine Learning, Operating Systems, Computer Networks, a number of mathematics courses). In the end my piece of advice to students at University of Massachusetts Amherst, particularly those following a similar path to my own, would be to not focus on perfection in coursework. Spend time around your classmates - some of the most creative, intelligent, and passionate individuals I have ever met I first started talking to when they sat next to me in class. If you are feeling particularly inspired, the university is perhaps one of the only places where you can take the helm (so to speak) and dive into something of your own. This path may seem risk and challenging, but if you do it for long enough and well enough (and you’re lucky), you can become a researcher->Ph.D.->Post-Doc->Professor and get funding to work on something truly of your own making, how incredible!
A applied to a number of universities through the graduate application process, primarily focused on Master’s programs in computer science and was accepted to University of California Los Angeles, Carnegie Mellon University, and my undergraduate institution University of Massachusetts Amherst. While this decision was difficult, especially since leaving UMass meant a more expensive and unfamiliar program, I did decide to attend CMU for a Master’s in Software Engineering (focus in Embedded Systems). I have many people to thank for this process along the way which I will not list here.
The end of my undergraduate experience was particularly significant as it meant that my long time girlfriend and I would no longer have to be in a long-distance relationship. She, the incredible person she is, also decided that she would join me to Pittsburgh, something that I am grateful for. To kick off the summer, Lillian and I finally went on a road-trip that I had been planning for a few months across the United States. This is something that deserves its own post (or many!) to detail more about this trip. We traveled about across 25 U.S. states, over 10 national parks, a number of national monuments (I don’t have a detailed list of these, there were many), 15,000 miles of driving, about 28 days of van-lifing inside of a converted SUV. I highly recommend it for anyone who hasn’t tried: an impromptu trip with sufficient time set-aside but little to no constraints on where and when you can go (no reservations, appointments, etc). After this trip concluded, I spent a little time working in Burlington, VT at BETA technologies and then moved to Pittsburgh PA.
CMU has kept me incredibly busy so far. I am impressed and still overwhelmed by the sheer scale of resources, opportunities, and information that I am exposed to but I try to be a sponge for it all. Currently I am considering a number of different courses to take next semester as an elective (something quantum, something systems like O.S., something machine learning, something computer networking) but I do not have the information I need yet to make that decision. A stale blog that lacks recent posts should be deleted, thus here I am. And hopefully will be.