Saumya Choudhary
What’s your year, your major, and your hometown?
I’m Saumya, and I'm a junior graduating in 2023. My pronouns are she/her, my majors are statistics and data science, and my hometown is Carmel, Indiana.
Can you tell me your past committees you've been on in SAAS and what your current committee is?
So I started out in the Data Consulting committee in Fall 2019. For three semesters, I was in DC. Then last semester in Spring 2021, I was in the External Affairs Committee. And then this semester, I’m now the External Vice President.
Why did you choose stats and data science as your majors?
I applied to Berkeley as an astrophysics major. And I was pretty interested in astronomy at the time, but I was kind of looking at careers out of, you know, being an astrophysics major. It wasn't what I wanted to do. There's a lot of academia or research, and I don't think that's really my vibe. And so over the summer, before college, I was doing research into other fields that I really wanted to pursue, and I just came across data science. I did some volunteer work over the summer through a couple of online volunteer sites, and I did a lot of data analytics work for them: creating dashboards, cleaning up data, inputting data, just basic stuff. But I enjoyed it, and I thought it was cool to be working with data and just exploring what the different business problems are across different organizations or industries. So I stuck with data science. I talked to a lot of people who I already knew were going to Berkeley and I asked them about the data science major, and they said it's very application based. I took on the stats major after that, to also get the theory side of things so I can get the full picture. And that's how I chose these two majors.
Could you tell me a fun fact about yourself?
This isn't really fun, but I have a really good memory when it comes to people's faces or names or small details about them. So when a lot of people struggle to remember some random fact about people, they tend to come to me and ask, “Hey, Saumya, what was that person's fun fact?” And I can just remember it for them. It doesn't work after it's been, like, seven years of having not seen someone if I'm not close to them, but it generally works pretty well. So I would say my fun fact is I am good at remembering people's faces, names, small fun facts about them, and stuff like that.
What kind of hobbies or interests do you have? What kind of entertainment are you into?
That’s a good question. I'm trying to build more hobbies. Honestly, I wish I were more interesting in terms of my hobbies. Over quarantine, I picked up yoga. So I do a lot of yoga, and I'm trying to get more into lifting and stuff like that. There's a good SAAS community out there for people into lifting and I want to be a part of that. So hopefully, that'll become a bigger hobby at some point. I'm also trying to get back into reading. There's a cool book that I've been reading called: A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. It's a very simple murder mystery, but it's helpful for someone who hasn't read in so long. It's a very fast paced, interesting book, so I've been enjoying that. And then when I have the time and the resources, I enjoy cooking, like trying out different pasta recipes, or whatever else that is easy to make. I also like to explore the food scene in Berkeley, going to different restaurants or whatever else comes along my way.
What are some other professional experiences you've had? And could you give me some details about how you use statistics and data science in those?
This summer, I worked at Accenture, which is a tech consulting company. I worked specifically with a retail client, Ross, and my job was to be a data analyst for them. My first project was creating dashboards and reporting on different metrics that they wanted to track for whatever business problem they were trying to solve. But then, because I'm interested in machine learning and a little bit of product management too, I tried to take initiative and insert a side project into this main one. I created this predictive model to predict some metrics that they were trying to track for their business problem. That was cool because I got to create it from scratch, and I got to pitch the idea all by myself. So it combined all my interests of data science, machine learning, and even a little bit of PM.
Could you elaborate on your other professional experiences?
I've done a couple of projects through the Data Science Discovery Program, this research program that I work pretty closely with. And one cool project that I did was with the UCSF Medical Center. I can’t disclose too much because it was a lot of sensitive patient data, but it was a really cool Natural Language Processing and Natural Language Understanding project. That was my first time working with really interesting transformer models, which are more advanced language models that I'd never gotten the chance to work with. I worked on it for a long time—nine months with the group. I really enjoyed that. There’s another project which isn't necessarily professional, but it was my first introduction to more advanced machine learning, which sparked my interest in the field. It was actually my second semester DC project through SAAS. I worked with AiLanthus, which is a legal tech company that works with patents. We were working to validate patents and how abstract they were. That was a very NLP heavy project, which was super cool because I was a second semester freshman at the time, so it was cool to learn about these advanced topics that I never thought I would touch until I was a junior. So honestly, I credit that experience with being my gateway into the ML world. It just sparked my interest in this work in general.
Do you have any other campus involvements?
There's another club that I'm a part of called Product Space at Berkeley, which is a product management club. Last semester, I started out in their equivalent of SAAS’s CX program. I learned all about product management through workshops and side projects and everything. This semester, I am in the committee that's equivalent to DC, so we're doing a client project for Bartleby, which is an EdTech platform. Our job is to introduce a new feature to their platform, see how successful it would be, and try to pitch alternatives if we don't think it's going to be successful. And then I mentioned the Data Science Discovery Program. I currently work as a Program Coordinator, so my job is to answer or send out emails, lead the student matching process, communicate with their project partners to answer any questions they have, or even source them, interview them, etc. It's a very cross-functional kind of job. Those would be a couple other campus involvements that I have.
How did you find out about SAAS?
I found out about the summer before I came to college freshman year, and I was looking on the CalLink ASUC page for clubs. I searched for data science clubs and found SAAS along with DSS, ML@B, and others.
Why did you choose SAAS over other clubs?
I think we emphasize our values pretty strongly, like our close-knit community. I feel SAAS has done a really good job of surrounding ourselves with really good people in the club. No one's some massive tech bro or a terrible clout-chasing kind of person, which I thought I saw in my experience in DSS or ML@B, for example. I really do like the people in SAAS. And I think that we do a good job of, like I said, keeping our community tight and close knit. That's what has kept me in SAAS and how my interest in it was sparked at first.
How did you make friends with people at SAAS?
When I started out in DC, it was kind of hard for me to step out or reach out to people. And I was just a very shy, quiet person as a freshman and didn't know how to put myself out there. But after the first three or four semesters in SAAS, I started putting myself out there; last semester is when I really found some solid friends. And I did that by urging myself to put myself out of my comfort zone and try to make friends as much as possible. Overall, I just went to socials, spoke up during meetings, and I just reached out to people as much as possible in whatever way I was comfortable with. It’s just the domino effect. After you find one friend, you're going to find a whole bunch of others too. My advice for anyone who’s looking to make friends in SAAS is that it comes down to putting yourself out there, going to socials, speaking up during meetings, and stuff like that. And I think you will find your crowd because we do offer a lot of really varied socials that cater to a lot of different interests. You definitely will be able to find your fit.
What is your proudest accomplishment in SAAS?
Honestly, this semester, I've been really happy with my role in SAAS, however big or small that is. My goal coming to SAAS was to make the External Affairs Committee a bit more visible in the club and do a lot more outreach with the campus community. And so I'm just really happy with all the effort and work that our committee members on External Affairs have put into planning different info sessions, panels, or reaching out to other clubs and doing career fairs and socials. The committee as a whole has been doing a really good job of making ourselves more visible, and providing more professional opportunities and cross-campus club connection opportunities to SAAS. So I've been really happy with that, and I think that would be an accomplishment of mine that I could credit as my proudest one.
What's your favorite SAAS memory?
At the end of my first semester freshman year, we had just done our client presentation for DC. After the client presentation, Ruhi, who is the current projects vice president, sent a message to the Slack channel asking if anyone wanted to get ice cream. And I replied, so we met up, and we got ice cream. And I think this is one of the happiest memories, because she was my first proper friend in SAAS and I made a breakthrough with her at that moment. It's hard to explain, but looking back at it, I had a really good time, just getting ice cream and getting to know each other through this very simple bonding moment. I think it just harkens back to the fact that everyone in SAAS is so open and easy to talk to and be friends with.
Do you have any advice for fresh SAASies coming in?
I think the first thing that comes to mind is just like I said: putting yourself out there. Because SAAS is massive. We have over 100 members in the club and we have so many organized socials, but also off the cuff impromptu socials and all these different events planned for our members. And so I think just putting yourself out there, showing up to socials, making a friend in your committee and going to socials with your committee friend, and then finding more people to hang out with by reaching out to people via Slack. It just comes down to really putting yourself out there and getting out of your comfort zone, which is easier said than done. But a lot of people in SAAS have gone through the same experience of not knowing too many people in this club, yet finding ways to work around that. So feel free to talk to any of the older members in SAAS and just ask them how they made friends in this club or just made friends in general. That's another good way of putting yourself out there -- reaching out to older people and asking for advice.
What's your favorite class that you've taken?
Data 100 because a lot of the things that I learned from Data 100 were very practical and applicable to the industry experience that I have. I think it prepares you very well for what you're going to do out of graduation, if you choose to go the data science route.
What's your favorite underrated spot on campus that more people should know about?
I actually really like Berkeley Way West. I don't think a lot of people study there, but it's a really nice study spot. It's very quiet, has large tables, and it has a little lounge area upstairs. I'm a big fan of that spot. Cafe Think in Haas is also a really pretty place to study.
What’s your favorite place to study on campus?
I'm a fan of either Doe or East Asian. I think it has very pretty architecture and decor inside.
What is the prettiest building on campus? And then what is the ugliest building?
I think the ugliest is obviously Evans as everyone says. I also think the architecture building is pretty gross to look at, which I think is how it was built intentionally. I think the prettiest area of campus is the path to Li Ka Shing. Walking through the path makes me very happy because the sunlight hits through the trees in a really pretty way, and I always stop to take pictures there. I'm a big fan of that area.
What is your favorite bathroom on campus?
I think the Haas bathrooms are very pretty. They’re very well maintained.
What's your favorite restaurant?
Every time I'm hanging out with someone and we need a place to eat, I always suggest Ippudo and they're never disappointed by it. So I would say it’s a really good place.
Who is your favorite professor?
My favorite professor would be John DeNero. He's just very friendly, and he's so eager. I feel like his personality is so well suited to being a professor. We did a faculty coffee chat with him this semester in SAAS. I heard from a lot of people that he's just so eager and interested and always willing to learn. That's a value that I want to embody as well: always willing to learn and always a student first, so he inspires me in that way.
What is your favorite Berkeley memory?
I don't think it really comes down to a specific day, or a specific event or something. I think honestly, it's just getting comfortable with the people around me and becoming friends with them. During freshman year, I spent a lot of time in my next door neighbor's dorm room, and we would just hang out for hours. I would study on her floor, and we would just laugh at random things and we became really comfortable with each other. Those kinds of moments are the ones that I cherish a lot.