Kelly Tran
Let’s start with an introduction. Can you tell me your year, pronouns, your majors/minors, and hometown?
I’m a second-year intended Computer Science and possibly Data Science. We'll see how that goes. Possibly a minor in music as well. I'm from San Gabriel, which is like a suburban little city in SoCal, basically East LA. And I go by she/her series!
What committees have you been in in SAAS?
Last semester was my first semester in SAAS and I was in Web Development. Now I’m Web Dev director, so I've only been in Web Dev.
Why did you choose Web Development?
I wasn't really too sure which committee I was interested in originally. I just went to the SAAS info session and I saw there were eight different committees, but I think I was pretty drawn to Web Dev because I felt like the directors were really easy to talk to and I liked the way that they presented Web Dev. As someone who didn't have much experience, I was just interested in learning and I think they saw that. And here I am!
You mentioned a whole list of majors, can you talk a little bit about that? How did you choose your majors?
It's kind of funny actually, I started off coming into Berkeley as a MCB (Molecular Cellular Biology) and Music double major. I was super set on doing research, and even pre-med possibly. I make music kind of as a hobby, which is why I was interested in double majoring. But after my first semester at Cal, I quickly realized that maybe MCB isn't for me. I ended up taking CS 10, which is an intro CS course, and I really enjoyed it. That was my first time coding but I really enjoyed the course and thought maybe if I don’t like bio, I can try data science or CS.
Speaking of hobbies, since you said you liked music, what other hobbies and interests do you have?
Honestly, music is probably one of my main hobbies–I really enjoy making music! I’ve been singing from a young age and my parents are really into karaoke. I started by playing the violin in elementary school, and then I picked up the piano, guitar, ukulele, all that stuff. I think music has always been an escape for me and it really is my creative outlet. I also songwrite, I think those two go hand-in-hand. I also love making coffee. My dad used to always make me coffee growing up, so I guess I kind of stuck with me. I love making people coffee now.
What are your professional interests?
My current professional interests are centered around SWE. Anything software development related. As a sophomore, I know my interests might change. I think what data consulting does is really cool and I would love to do that as a job maybe 5-10 years down the line because I think I’d really like combining data analytics stuff with a consulting project. We'll see though!
Would you ever consider combining your interest in Pre-med and MCB with data analytics?
Actually, that was one of the things that drew me to SAAS in the beginning. I was looking essentially for a data science club to join just to have a community, especially since I was kind of “breaking into tech” switching from biology, which is very different. I was actually interested in bioinformatics–I thought it was a cool niche and is honestly something I’m still interested in learning about. Combining them, I think it’s a really cool realm. Maybe in the future when I’m less jaded about MCB, I’d be down to go back to that. But as of right now, I’m just trying to declare my major so that’s my main focus.
What experience did you get from the Web Dev committee?
I learned a lot, but it's more of what you put into it. When I was in Web Dev, my directors taught me the bare bones of what you kind of need to do front/back end and how to edit and work with the SAAS website. Something I'm very comfortable with now is working with pre-existing codebases because I had to do that in the summer while we were preparing the SAAS website for fall recruitment. There's a lot of things we had to add and update, so I was able to get really familiar and comfortable with it.
What was your project in Web Dev last semester?
My project in Web Dev, I did it with my big, Ashley. We did a BTS fan page, which kind of sounds troll, I know, but it's something that at the time, I knew I could do well. So I think our BTS fan page was pretty dope. You could click on the photo cards, and they would pop up more information, and it was even linked to a spotify playlist. And there were moving gifs–I'm very proud of our fanpage. Everyone starts somewhere and I started with a BTS fanpage and I stand by that.
Have you had any passion projects that you took your own initiatives on?
I literally combined all of my interests into one project this past summer. As I said, I really love music, I like coding (sometimes), and I also like coffee. I wanted to do a mini project where essentially, I combined these three things. Basically, I created a web application where, if you logged in with your Spotify account, it looked at your past four weeks of listening history and took the top twenty songs from that list. Then , I created a little algorithm using Spotify's Web API, and it outputs a coffee order based on the four weeks of your listening.
Wow. What was your thought process with that?
It was just like a random shower thought, you know, like when you have a “omg what if I did this?” moment. I felt like this was doable and I felt like I could do it. So I did a lot of research and I spent a few weeks brainstorming. How could I do this? What languages would I need? I taught myself ReactJS and I taught myself how to use Spotify's API, which is very confusing, but luckily I did have a lot of help.
How do you like the coffee chats, donutbots, and all the bonding events that SAAS offers?
Oh, my God, wait I absolutely love it! I have a lot of fun memories and that's how I got to know a lot of people. One of my donutbots, Sushant, made me coffee and because he lived in a co-op, they were servng vegan pho for dinner, so we ate that. That was so interesting because as a freshman, I didn't know about co-ops until then.
Do you have any other memorable coffee chat stories?
I remember one of my coffee chats with Anusha, our coffee chat lasted for two and a half hours. We skipped a class that we were both in because we were like “No, we're not done yet. We have to keep going.” And I think that's the beauty of coffee chats and donutbots, you never know what's gonna happen.
What advice would you give to newer members?
If you really put in the effort to get to meet other people, they will put that back.
Let’s end with some get-to-know-you questions. Biggest fear, and why?
I feel like I have categories of fears. As a kid, and still now, I'm deathly afraid of things popping out of the dark and I hate jump scares. But the deepest darkest fear would probably be losing a friend. Not in a death kind of way, but just more of drifting apart and losing contact with someone you were super close with.
What are your red flags?
I have a coffee addiction. Like everyone says that but it's actually a problem.
And since you're obsessed with music, what song describes your life currently?
I’m going to go with a NIKI song because she’s my all-time favorite artist. One of the songs that currently describes my life right now is called “Take a Chance on Me” by NIKI. It's a really cute song. I didn't want to do a sad one so we're going with this one.
Roast yourself.
I'm really basic. I'm not ashamed of it, but I am basic.
Last question, what is your spirit animal?
I guess a hedgehog. I really like hedgehogs so maybe I'm a little biased, but hedgehogs are prickly and kind of scary. They're kind of tiny, and you could probably run one over because it’s so small. It kind of relates back to me, because some people tell me I’m intimidating. But I'm like 5’4”–how intimidating can a 5’4” girl be? I don't really understand it when people tell me that, but I'm like, okay, I'll go off of that.