Alright, so let's start off with some background info: what year are you; what's your major; where you from?

I'm a junior; I am a Statistics major and I'm from Pleasanton, California.

Why did you choose that major?

Yeah, so I think my original plan was to be a data scientist, so I was like, okay, what's the most logical major to pick? Probably stats, which doesn't make too much sense now because Data Science is a major, but we'll ignore that. Once I got into it, I was like, oh shoot, it's really fun: the math probability stuff really speaks to me, and even though i'm not really using it now in my day to day, I definitely don't regret picking this major.

What do you do for fun?

I really love cars, so literally anything like driving, playing car games. I'm lifting, recently got more into Hearthstone, and basketball. Yeah, I think those are my four main things.

What's your favorite car?

Oh, good question. Right now is typically a Honda s2000 because it's just like… I don't know how familiar you are with cars, but it just rips. Good stuff, good stuff.

In terms of professional experience, what sort of experience do you have? Do you have internships or research?

I think it's purely been professional experience for me. So in terms of internships, last summer I was a Business Analyst at UnitedHealth group, which is a huge healthcare company. Right now I'm a Product Management intern at nCino, which is a FinTech startup. My work involves creating analytics for banks who want to make data-driven decisions on potential loans they plan on giving to their clients. In the summer I'll be doing Product Management at Expedia. Specifically, I will be working in Natural Language Processing with their chatbot! So super excited to continue the Machine Learning and Data Science theme!

Are you in any other clubs?

Nope just SAAS.

Speaking of SAAS, how'd you find out about SAAS and when/why did you join SAAS?

So I was just stalking LinkedIn and was looking at Berkeley Statistics graduates and what they did while they were here that helped them become data scientists. After going through for a bit, I found this one guy who was in SAAS and did Data Consulting. I was like wait, I thought consulting was just like a business thing, like I didn't realize you could do data science consulting. So yeah, from there, I looked at what SAAS was, or I guess at the time it was SUSA, just put it in my backlog, and then once fall 2019 came, I signed up, got in, and yeah here we are!

So fall 2019 would be your sophomore fall?

Okay, so I said junior earlier, but it's more complicated, I'm a junior transfer, this is like my second year. But then I'll be graduating in May 2022 so it's like my third year. It was a really weird path, so I just say junior, but technically I was a junior last year too.

Where did you transfer from?

Diablo Valley College, it's like 20-25 minutes away from Berkeley.

What committees have you been in and what's your favorite?

I did Career Exploration my first semester, then I did DC my next two, and then IVP right now. I think my favorite was definitely Career Exploration just because when I went in I had a very basic idea of what data science was like. I did a little bit of Kaggle beforehand, but I wasn't really super into it. The two leads for Education at the time, Andrew and Ajay, taught me literally everything. If I came in with a question, they'd answer it. They both put so much effort into developing the curriculum and just doing that with them really sparked a passion for data science and machine learning for me, like it just made all my future classes easier and really, really defined my experience at Cal I'd say. Even though I am not really directly pursuing Data Science right now, I very much use the skills they taught me in Product Management.

In DC is there any one project that you particularly enjoy or that you're particularly proud of?

Yeah, I guess the Spring 2021 one really sticks out to me, since our team was kind of fragmented already. But then COVID hit, so it was literally like four of us working across a bunch of time zones. We had time zones from Singapore to California so we'd meet up every once in a while at these weird times. And it was literally just four of us, but we still got the product out there and it was really cool working remotely and actually getting something done despite the challenges thrown at us.

What was this product?

It was a children's toy that could play songs for kids or tell stories, all that stuff in a little robot. So we were looking at the user data, so like how long did they use it, when did they skip songs, what songs do they skip, all that jazz to help them figure out how to optimize the content, so we created a pipeline to visualize that stuff basically.

So it's like Spotify but for little kids?

Yeah yeah exactly, just think of an iPad without a screen, but yeah Spotify.

What's your favorite memory in SAAS?

Yeah I don't know if I have a specific memory, I think probably my CX final project. I remember sitting in on Friday nights instead of actually doing stuff and just working with our project, which, looking back, it's kind of sad, but yeah I just really enjoyed doing it so I think that was my highlight; definitely the final project for CX.

I mean if you enjoyed it it's a fun way to spend your Friday night.

Yes, yes that's what I tell myself.

How do you make friends in SAAS and would you say that comes more from CX or from DC?

Yeah so weirdly enough I don't think I met that many people until COVID was a thing, just because I had a lot of things on my plate and I was like doing the bare minimum of work for the club without going to socials. So I honestly think I met the same amount of people across all my experiences. But for me, socially definitely during coronavirus just doing donutbots and all that jazz definitely helped me branch out and I think I know a decent amount of people at this point, so yeah, they're a pretty fun aspect.

Did you go to any in person events before COVID at all?

Yeah, I think I went to the end of the semester party at Adish's house. And there's some research event I went to but other than that, not too much.

Of the three SAAS values of community, exploration, and mentorship, could you pick one and explain what it means to you?

For me, exploration, I think, definitely defines my time at SAAS just because each semester I did something completely different. Honestly, I would not have envisioned myself doing this even a year before then, like in CX e I would not have expected myself to explore different areas of data science and really, really understand it. And even now right if you told me a year ago I'd be doing IVP I'd be like why? That does not sound like a good use of your time, but no it's great, you meet a bunch of people and get to host events. I think exploration definitely sticks out to me the most because SAAS definitely gave that to me, experiencing a bunch of new stuff.

Do you have a specific vision for how SAAS can change in the future?

Honestly, I like what they're doing right now, just a lot more community based since when I was in person for me, like they did hold events and stuff and they did an amazing job at it. But the house system wasn't a thing, so I think going forward if we implement the house system into our in-person activities, it'll make the club a lot more close knit and more social, so I guess it's something they're already doing, but yeah just like continuing what they're doing now.

All right, moving on to some questions about Berkeley. What's your favorite class that you've taken?

Probably Data 100. All the projects were legit really fun, like you got to do analysis on I think it was news articles. I think our final project was like super open ended and I got to do data analysis on things like Indonesian birth rates or something. The class had a lot less structure, because data science as a whole is just really loose ended, so it was really cool just getting to go through the whole cycle, figuring stuff out on your own, really living the data science lifecycle.

Out of curiosity, are you taking any CS classes?

Yeah, so in my personal opinion, after 61A and 61B it's kind of diminishing returns for your effort, so I just stuck with those two and I think that's been good enough for me. I don't really need to know what's going on in 170.

And do you have a favorite professor?

I guess it's two. So for Math 54 and Stat 134, I took the adjuncts. The professors for those were Brandon Saenz and Mike Leong. They were amazing, like if you go to office hours they'd literally spend 30 minutes just walking through a problem with you. Those two guys are the only reason I got good grades in those classes, they're really dedicated and passionate about their jobs. To anyone reading this who is considering taking the adjunct for their math/stats course, I highly recommend that you do!

Are there any spots on campus that you like hanging out at or studying with friends at?

Yeah so for studying I really like Kresge, the engineering library. It's kind of near Evans Hall 'cause I mean it's not a secret or anything, but a lot less people go there for some reason. So I just go at night and I didn't really have trouble finding seats or anything. It's really quiet and peaceful, and I guess when it was late at night and I was just walking back to my dorm or my room was definitely one of my favorite times at Berkeley. For just hanging out in general, I don't know, I don't think I really have a specific spot, just anywhere that's open I guess.

Do you have any favorite restaurants or boba shops or coffee shops in Berkeley?

Yeah, so this is a good thing or not, but I pretty much only go to one restaurant. It's called D'Yar. It's this Mediterranean place. It's a little bit off of Asian Ghetto. The same block, I think, just a little further down. But yeah, the food was mediocre, like it was way overpriced, I don't know what it was, but we just kept going there. That stuff is comfort food in Berkeley for me if that makes sense. Besides that, there was this burrito place, I can't remember the name, which is really sad. Do people still use Snackpass? Because you can get some deals and if you check every once in a while I think it's worth it. Oh yeah, so the other place is called La Burrita. Yeah, La Burrita and D'yar are my two favorite places. Weirdly enough, I think they both have northside and southside locations.