Empowerly

Student profile

Everyone belongs to many different communities and/or groups defined by (among other things) shared geography, religion, ethnicity, income, cuisine, interest, race, ideology, or intellectual heritage. Choose one of the communities to which you belong, and describe that community and your place within it. (word limit 250)

My grandfather is sitting on his bed, quietly flipping through a book while I watch in amazement. What amazes me is despite his past experiences, he can still maintain a level of quietness. My grandparents and my parents were survivors of the Vietnam War that ravaged Vietnam, barely escaping with their lives. Afterwards, my parents were thrown into different countries, having to pursue their educations by themselves in places where they knew nobody. Even though I was born with fewer worries, I still admire my ancestors’ perseverance. 

Being born in Australia, I was more fortunate, but I did experience my own hardships when I had to move to two additional countries between six and fifteen years old. However, I remembered my grandparents’ struggles.  Rather than feeling sorry for myself, I decided that I was in a better position to help myself. I turned to sports. To be able to play sports and connect with others no matter the location further inspired my involvement in creating a squash organization with another student. Now, our goal is to get everybody in the Darien community and its surrounding neighborhoods to play and enjoy the game of squash. No matter the barriers, it is our ongoing hope that we can help everybody feel more connected and diminish stress. Ultimately, I took the lessons I learned from my grandparents to help both myself and support my community as well.

Describe the unique qualities that attract you to the specific undergraduate College or School (including preferred admission and dual degree programs) to which you are applying at the University of Michigan. How would that curriculum support your interests? 

I was privileged to be among the few selected students chosen to  attend the Data Science Camp (MIDAS), a week-long data science camp at the Detroit Center. During the experience, I learned about different types of mathematical functions, particularly the usefulness of the hyperbolic tangent. Having seen the elegance of the graphs produced by these mathematical functions amazed me at how deep math stretches. Math is simply everywhere, especially in data science where the process follows a mathematical algorithm. What makes Michigan so much more enticing than other colleges is its renown for diverse research projects. One such researcher came during MIDAS and talked about his work regarding light and optics, working alongside Prof. Raj Nadakuditi, a well-known researcher at Michigan. Just hearing about how they performed their research showed me how much support Michigan gives to expanding knowledge. Therefore, it would be thrilling for me to engage in research such as analyzing mathematical fluid dynamics through computer analysis, bringing together technology and math, two of some of the most enticing subjects. I was also treated to several lectures by researchers at the University of Michigan, and the passion and confidence simply made it feel like they were at home when doing the actual work. 

The professors at the University of Michigan appear to be enthusiastic about getting students immersed in the material being taught through interactive simulations. Their enthusiasm really attracted me to Michigan and made me excited about delving deeper in math and using it to understand data science even better. There was one lesson where we looked at machine learning, a process where for example, an algorithm tries to detect a user’s likes and interests and produces search results that appeal to those interests. The simulation involved blue and orange neurons, where they could be seen on a resulting image that also had blue and orange sections. The goal was to place the individual neurons into its respective color zone, representing the machine’s attempt to learn new information and categorizing the data to meet a consumer’s desires. To make things more complicated, the final image was done in a variety of more complex shapes, reflecting the level of difficulty of learning to which each machine had to adapt. Seeing machine learning displayed in such an interactive way really caught my attention, but more appealing was the algorithm that allowed machines to “learn”. How did the machines learn about our interests? Being able to explore technology and learn about the theory behind the algorithms is something that I feel only Michigan would allow me to do, having been exposed to their willingness to provide interesting simulations and having professors talk about their research projects. Therefore, enrolling in the College of Literature, Arts and Sciences would give me the best chance to continue my passion for math and make a meaningful contribution to the Michigan community. 

If you could only do one of the activities you have listed in the Activities section of your Common Application, which one would you keep doing? Why? (Required for all applicants.)

Being able to see the potential for math to be used in service of society has made my website lonelyfightersofcancer.net become a project that I can expand upon as I learn more about math and gain valuable experience as I grow older. Currently, my website ranks hospitals using a crafted ranking methodology inspired by the IBM Watson method of analyzing cancer websites. I want to be able to explore IBM Watson’s algorithm and find new ways to advance my website. Ultimately, I am able to experiment in many different ways with my website and look for innovative methods to improve it. My long term goal is to create new algorithms to build upon my ranking methodology and research. My intention is to gather large amounts of accurate data that also provides trends and predictions that people can use to choose the optimal healthcare.