Building a Better Future

Transcript

Now let’s meet Rahul, a native of India, he is an alumnus who just graduated with a degree in computer science and minors in mathematics and physics. Like many FIU students, Rahul had the opportunity to conduct undergraduate research. He focused on AI and he’s gonna tell us more about his work as well as all the extracurricular activities he enjoyed as a student. Take it away or Rahul.

Hi everyone, I still remember my first year at FIU coming from the other side of the world, my transitioning to the US was made smooth with the friends I made while living on campus at Panther hall. To pay it forward I became a resident assistant at Parkview Hall, which was the defining part of my FIU experience. As an RA, I assisted first year honors students to navigate FIU and develop meaningful friendships. One of the best parts about living on campus is that you can be involved right outside your room. I organized the first annual involvement fair for honors students living on campus. And in my junior year, I became the homecoming prince and attended several parades around Miami, representing FIU and meeting the local community. FIU is an emerging preeminent research university, which means it has a huge focus on academic research. As an undergraduate student, I had the chance to work on cutting edge artificial intelligence research at the cognac lab at Dr. Mark Finlayson. The faculty and staff at FIU are committed to the success of their students. My academic advisor gives me a chance to help my peers, by tutoring computer science courses through the academic success initiative. What started as a part-time tutoring job became an opportunity to gain leadership skills. But only did I lead a team of 20 tutors, the ability to have so many fellow students was immensely rewarding. FIU puts an equal emphasis on student involvement, which I saw early on at tabling events in the Graham center. My involvement with various student organizations shaped the way I perceived college. To pursue my passion for music, I joined university of the singers and perform at concerts at the school of music in downtown Miami. This was a dream come true, as I never thought I would be able to do all that while studying computer science. The college of engineering and computing is as real as it gets, put hands on activities like building race cars with Panther Motorsports, and participating in Shell Hacks, Florida’s largest hackathon, student organizations like Upsilon Pi Epsilon and driving the Miami tech movement. I benefited greatly from the practical learning programs, exploitive they recruited an app for the local community and CS4s where we taught elementary school students how to code. One of the best things about FIU is that you can get a world-class education at the same time as having fun. Today I’m a data scientist at Dell technologies, and this wouldn’t have been possible without the amazing experience I had during my time at FIU. That’s my story, what’s next Alex?

Great job Rahul, you really kept busy as an undergrad from working in AI, in the lab, to homecoming prince, I can’t think of a better college experience, and congrats on your new job at Dell we can’t wait to see what you accomplish, take care.