Caroline Chen
Could you give an introduction to who you are, your year, major, and hometown?
My name is Caroline, I am currently a fourth year, my majors are Statistics and Data Science. I was born in Berkeley, but I grew up in Fremont, about an hour away.
What are your hobbies/interests?
I've been playing the violin since I was five, and piano since I was seven. Did less of it in college, but still from time to time I'll pick them up.
Have you picked up any new hobbies over quarantine?
Over quarantine, I started getting more into puzzles and legos. Otherwise just trying to relax more. I got back into reading, but that's not really a new thing, but something that I used to do a lot more and kind of picked up again over quarantine.
Any book recommendations?
Across a Star Swept Sea, it's based off of a really old spy story called the Scarlet Pimpernel, but the book just kinda takes it into a super futuristic environment, like after all the continents of the earth have been destroyed and now there are only two islands left.
What professional experience do you have?
From February to November 2019 I was a business analyst intern at Cisco, and from June 2020 to present I am a data science intern at IBM.
What SAAS committees have you been on, and what do you do and learn in each one?
I joined my second semester of freshman year as an EVP committee member. I did a lot of emailing companies to try to get people to come in to do workshops, or emailing professors and inviting them to faculty dinners, things like that. And then the semester after that, I was a director for the Research and Publication committee, so I was co-directors with two people who are currently alums, Oscar and Rick, and we created a lot of workshops about how to scrape data, what resources are available on campus for you to get data, and we would take people through their own research projects and help them come up with deadlines and help them create a timeline so that they could finish their project within the semester. After that, I joined the Data Consulting committee on Luke's team, and we did a project for Minted, where they gave us a lot of different postcards and we had to categorize them by like, this is how many pictures are in a postcard, this is where the pictures are. And then after Data Consulting, I was President for one year, so a lot of that was mainly just working with all the directors, making sure that the club is where we need to be, talking about where the club needs to go. This semester I am the Executive Advisor and am also on the Education committee.
What is your favorite part about SAAS?
I know this is a cheesy answer, but definitely just meeting people. I've made some lifelong friends in this club, there are people who I'll just message at like 3 am, there are people who I'll just call for like hours upon hours sometimes. I think that's definitely my most favorite part.
Of the three SAAS values of community, exploration, and mentorship, can you choose one and explain what it means to you?
Community. I know that community and mentorship do go hand in hand, but I want to talk about community because I feel like mentorship is usually in the context of like someone helping you edit your resume and things like that, but I think what I got out of SAAS is like a lot more than just professional mentorship, it was also just talking to my peers, like hey what classes are you taking, do you want to take this class together, do you want to meet up, do you want to study, do you want to do this homework together. I think that just having a group of friends in college that I could just hit up, like hey let's get dinner today or let's study and then get dinner, people that I could hang out with any day of the week was just really helpful, and would help me get through college because you know, things do get difficult at times, and having that support system was really helpful for me.
How do you feel things have changed being in a remote setting, and how can members continue to build that sense of community?
Everything is definitely different, I would say that school feels very fake for me, homework deadlines just feel kind of fake, midterms feel kinda fake, and I think that having a support system -- I know that it's difficult because you can't see each other in person, like you can't actually go to Moffitt together, or Kresge together, but one thing that's been very helpful for me is the Slack class channels. Those have been very helpful for me, and also just messaging people on Facebook, making group chats with your committee for example, or making group chats with people you've talked to before, and just kind of holding each other accountable, like hey do you want to do a video call and work on this homework together tonight, something like that, is a really good way to bring back the reality a little bit, we're still in school, so I think that's helpful. It has changed though, and I do think that the exec team is trying really hard to keep up with the social events and help people try to meet each other at least, so I think that's also been very very helpful.
What is your personal vision for SAAS going forward?
I think that SAAS, at least in the recent two years, has focused a lot more on community and mentorship, which I hope that they will continue to do, and I think that having the Advisor committee get more involved has also been very helpful with that, so I think my vision for SAAS going forward is to have more alumni get involved as well. Maybe have some alumni come in and do some career talks, things like that, and just really keep up with the mentorship, especially as things are remote for who knows how long.
What's your favorite class you've taken at Berkeley?
I have favorite tech and non-tech classes. I think that my favorite tech class would either be Data 8 or Data 100. I like Data 100 because of the concepts that they teach, I think that they are very helpful, I mean even now for tech internships, when I study I go through my Data 100 cheatsheet, and it's a really good overview of everything that I need. Data 8, I know that the material is less, it's not less applicable but I will say that because they don't really teach you full on pandas or anything, they teach you like their own data science library, so I would say that the code that you learn there is maybe a little less applicable, but I like Data 8 because it was kind of my introduction to data science, so Data 8 holds a little special place in my heart for that. As for non-tech, there's a class that I'm taking this semester, Italian 40, that I actually really enjoy. They talk about everything from the history of the government to their art history, which is very cool and it's a nice break from just coding all day long.
Who is your favorite professor at Berkeley?
I really like Professor Fisher; he was my professor for Stat 153. He was really dedicated and you could tell that he really enjoyed teaching, and he was very energetic at all times. It was definitely helpful especially because we went remote in the middle of that semester. So the fact that he was still energetic even in his recorded lectures was definitely something that I appreciated a lot.
What is your favorite spot on campus that more people should know about?
I'm pretty basic, I spend a lot of time in Moffitt and Kresge. The coffee place in MLK and the entire downstairs area is kinda underrated, the downstairs area is huge and there are, well honestly there aren't that many seats in there, but it is very very big, and it's generally not super loud, but there's a little bit of noise that it's not just eerily quiet, which makes it a nice place to work. I also liked working in Eshleman, but a lot of people do spend time in Eshleman, so I wouldn't say that it's underrated.
Do you have a favorite bathroom to use on campus?
I do, I like the Eshleman bathrooms. I don't like the Kresge bathrooms, I really don't like the Moffitt bathrooms. The Doe Library bathrooms are pretty good.
What is your favorite boba shop/restaurant in Berkeley?
Favorite boba shop would have to be Asha. But Asha's pretty far from where I live, so when I don't want to walk all the way to Asha, YiFang's pretty good. And restaurant, restaurant is hard. I really like that kind of new Japanese shop on Telegraph, it's pretty close to campus.