Interviews and My Future Success

Knowledge has been passed down throughout generations as seniors impart their wisdom to their juniors.  To expand my own understanding of concepts such as research and student success, I interviewed multiple senior members of the university to gain from their experiences.  To maximize the effectiveness of my search, I diversified it, interviewing an upperclassman, a graduate student, and a professor.  In this quest, I gained an understanding of the expectations for upperclassmen, graduate students, and student-professor interactions.  As a research university, The Ohio State University places great emphasis on recruiting the best faculty and graduate students conduct research.  Through my interviews, I gained a degree of insight into the research of members of the university.  For an upperclassman, I interviewed Alex Cetnar, a senior in biomedical engineering and my resident advisor (RA).  Alex Cetnar helped me discover ideas about studying methods, student involvement, and selecting the most suitable major.  Next, I could interview my Physics 1250 graduate teaching assistant (GTA), Joseph Adams.  Joseph Adams explained methods to approach professors as well as his techniques to succeed in the classroom.  Unfortunately, the field of computer science and engineering has limited research opportunities for first-year students; therefore, finding a professor was more challenging than I had expected.  Professor James Davis and I discussed his areas of research.

I thought finding suitable candidates for interviews would be a challenge.  Admittedly, interviewing Joseph Adams was the easiest as he is my TA for physics and talked to me during office hours.  While searching for an upperclassman to interview, I asked my RA his major and year; coincidentally, he was both a senior and in the college of engineering and decided to interview him.  Lastly, I was originally going to interview my CSE instructor only to find she was TA.  However, after sending a set of e-mails, I secured an interview with Dr. James Davis, a professor of computer science and engineering within the college.  What originally appeared as a daunting task, interviewing with an upperclassman, GTA, and professor simply required reaching out.

I first interviewed the teaching assistant for my physics class, Joseph Adams.  We discussed ideas about student-faculty interaction, effective ways to study, and how to succeed in college.  Joe’s first suggestion was to talk to professors whose class I was already in, and stop by during office hours to ask a few questions.  I tried to take his advice to talk to my CSE professor, but the circumstances did not lead to an interview.  Next, Joe and I discussed good ways to study for exams, particularly finals.  He said, “prepare as if the test was 4 days earlier.  That way, if you don’t know something, or if an emergency comes up, you won’t be left unprepared.”  This is something I should have considered for my first Physics 1250 midterm, as my performance was rather lackluster.  Finally, we talked about methods to succeed as a college student and prepare for going out into the real world.  Essentially, there is a need to diversify yourself to future employers and/or graduate school programs.  Ideal candidates are well-rounded individuals who have superb interpersonal skills, gotten involved within the university, and a resume reflective of those attributes.  Overall, I learned a lot from Joseph Adams I will apply his tips to pursue my future academic goals.

After interviewing Joe, I had the opportunity to talk to my RA, Alex Cetnar, a fourth-year in the biomedical engineering program.  Like my interview with Joe, we briefly touched on different ways to study and comprehend material.  Alex echoed some of the ideas I got from Joe such as studying well before the test and doing practice problems.  But, Alex brought up that sometimes you cannot always learn enough studying alone.  He introduced the idea of a study group or finding some other external help when preparing for tests.  However, our discussion diverged when Alex told me how he finally decided on a major and his own involvement in college.  Originally, Alex was on a pre-med track through biomedical engineering, but he decided to stay strictly in biomedical after taking a tissue engineering course.  Probably his favorite class, he expounded on the details of the course by giving examples such as how the techniques could regrow some body parts and help them heal faster, acting like a Band-Aid made of tissue.  He summarized that the class proved that the direction he chose to go in was the right one.  Then, Alex brought up his own involvement at the university, being a part of a biomedical society, a religious organization, and Resident Life at The Ohio State University.  And while he said at times it can be difficult, the programs are worth it and a great way to meet like-minded people.  He ended the conversation with one key piece of advice, “You don’t want to spread yourself too thin and half-ass a bunch of things.  It’s better to give it your all in a few things and get more involved with those groups instead.”  These wise words will stick with me as I choose what I want to get involved in at The Ohio State University.

To find scholarly articles, I used the university’s access to the Scopus database, searching specifically for articles written by faculty at The Ohio State University and those related to computer science.  After a few cursory searches, one name frequently appeared: “Davis, J.”  So, I then looked for papers written by him, and I found two related to machine learning, which I subsequently downloaded and read.  Each was incredibly difficult to understand, even the abstract.  I settled on my rather shallow understanding and began to seek an interview with Dr. Davis.

My saga of interviews ended with my discussion with Dr. James Davis, a professor in the college of engineering for computer science and engineering.  Most of our discussion revolved around his research and projects, but he did mention his own college experience.  He explained that after graduating, he wished to pursue a higher-level degree and do research.  After receiving his Ph.D. from MIT, he became a faculty member at The Ohio State University, and has since been promoted to a full professor.  His research focuses on artificial intelligence and machine learning — allowing for simpler data collection and interpretation from the machines.  Although I could not understand half of the discussion, his research seemed quite interesting.  Dr. Davis is implementing statistical methods such as Bayesian inferencing and Dirichlet processes to isolate specifics actions into probabilities for the computer.  Specifically, he specified the advantages of using Dirichlet processes, where their probability distribution is a range of its own probability distributions.  These help vastly in making decisions and hypotheses with the computer.  While I felt as though I learned a fair bit, I understand I have most likely just scratched the surface of the research’s true meaning and applications.  And even though I am glad to have interviewed him, my dialogue with Dr. Davis confirmed I do not want to pursue research in the future.

Joseph Adams, Alex Cetnar, and Dr. James Davis bestowed their accumulated knowledge to me through this interview project.  Joe showed me how to succeed both in college and once I move into the “real world.”  Alex gave me more methods to succeed and get involved in college organizations.  Finally, Dr. Davis showed me how research was done in the CSE field and confirmed my previous contention of not wanting to pursue research.  While some may see the appeal of discovering new method and applications for existing computer infrastructure, I know there is little money in that area, and I feel it is not a self-rewarding idea to seek.  This project has confirmed many ideas I previously had about academic success and research, but it has also granted me new ones to ponder over.  Combining everything I have gained from Dr. Davis with Joe’s information as a guide to academic success and Alex’s involvement as a role model, my success at The Ohio State University is practically guaranteed.

Works Cited

Barker, J. W., and J. W. Davis. “Temporally-Dependent Dirichlet Process Mixtures for Egocentric Video Segmentation”. IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshops. SCOPUS. Web. 23 Oct. 2016.

Zamalieva, D., A. Yilmaz, and J. W. Davis. A Multi-Transformational Model for Background Subtraction with Moving Cameras. Vol. 8689 LNCS., 2014. SCOPUS. 23 Oct. 2016 <www.scopus.com>.