Journey into the curious mind
Hack4Impact UIUC Member Spotlight
With the start of our 5th semester, the UIUC chapter of Hack4Impact welcomed more new faces into the organization. As a fairly new organization, we are constantly looking to grow. We look for people who will stay with us for a long period of time, gain experience, and pass those experiences onto new recruits. Therefore, I wanted to sit down and gain insight on our new recruit’s perspective, who is a freshman at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and recently joined our organization.
Here is my conversation with one of Hack4Impact UIUC’s new member Yousef Ahmed where we dive into his journey into college and Hack4Impact UIUC…
Yousef Ahmed is currently a freshman at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a member at Hack4Impact UIUC.
Q: How has your past year been?
A: The past year was interesting and more laid back. My summer was a little bit more busy relative to a lot of other people though. I probably should have dialed down, but I loved the work that I did! I was a research assistant at the University of Illinois at Chicago and participated in Google CSSI! After all of that, I came to UIUC.
Q: How was the transition from high school to college?
A: I really really love college. I think it takes the best features of high school and expands upon it. I love independent study, and UIUC helps facilitate that. It provides you with specialized courses, so a lot of the courses I am taking or will take are materials I am interested in!
Q: What made you decide CS?
A: My family encouraged me to take on this path because I loved school.
Eventually, I started taking computer science courses in high school, and it started to change my view.
I also founded a student organization called Comp Sci Kids in high school, which brings in student volunteers to teach computer science to children who have never been exposed to computer science before. Founding and teaching at Comp Sci Kids really grounded my decision to study computer science.
Q: How has your past experience in Comp Sci Kids influenced you?
A: I have taken a lot from Comp Sci Kids. The greatest thing I learned is to never underestimate what you can do. I never imagined Comp Sci Kids to become this big. I did not have too much time during my junior and senior year due to class loads and college applications, but I dedicated around 30 minutes to an hour every day for Comp Sci Kids.
Dedicating small segments of time to something meaningful can lead to many great things. It is marginal growth. The difference between two people can be just that small amount of dedicated time.
We started with 150 students and 70 high school tutors, but now we have around 500 students and 80 high school tutors. The small amount of time I dedicated every day really helped reach our big milestones. Also, Comp Sci Kids really encouraged my love for teaching. Teaching is another great way to learn. For example, in order to teach CS, you need to understand the core fundamentals because you never know how you have to explain concepts to maximize understanding.
Q: Any teaching moment that sticks out to you?
A: I still remember this one student Leilani who was very excited and driven in class. I would be teaching something, and she will always finish and go above and beyond. She would share her work to everyone in the class. She later wrote me a thank you note, and I absolutely loved it. If it wasn’t for Comp Sci Kids, she may have never heard about computer science or pursued it.
Now, I understand why teachers are so happy when they see driven students.
Q: What are you interested in?
A: With my interest in both computer science and medicine, I joined the Cancer Scholars program at UIUC. Cancer Scholars program welcomes people from all sorts of majors to come together to look for relations in cancer research with computer science. Personally, I am really interested in machine learning in this area because there is a lot of interesting research being done on how we can utilize machine learning to improve patient care. For example, how can we detect cancer in CT scans early? More generally, how can we use computer science to improve medical experiences for doctors?
Q: What sparks your curiosity?
A: I just like learning a lot. Learning something for the first time really appeals to me.
I would be very interested to dedicate the rest of my life learning.
My parents mentioned if I wanted to become a professor, as I will be able to dedicate my life doing research. I think it is too early for me to decide, but I am definitely curious to explore.
