Machine Learning Intern Journal — The End of The Beginning
As the title indicates, this is the journal of a Machine Learning (ML) intern at the impactIA Foundation. I’ll be attempting to keep a weekly journal of my activities in the Foundation to keep track of my progress and leave a roadmap for the interns who come after me.
And here we are, 6 months later. The final blog update. I’d like to take this opportunity to reflect on my internship at impactIA Foundation. Back in late 2019, as I started my final year of my Bachelors degree at the University of Sussex, I was already looking at pursuing my educational journey by doing a Masters degree. Having worked hard during my degree, I started eyeing degrees at prestigious English universities such as Imperial, UCL, Edinburgh and Kings. I applied to those with my (then) current grades, which were very good, but not excellent — and I knew that excellence was needed to attend these universities. Early 2020, I got rejections from Imperial and Edinburgh. I got an offer from Kings and was offered an alternative Masters at UCL (?). I was disappointed, especially since the last term of my degree was by far my best, receiving the prize for best Bachelor thesis in my cohort. The COVID-19 pandemic was in full swing now, and I decided to postpone my Masters by a year, as I did not want to travel back to the UK during those uncertain times.
This is when I decided to look for an internship, even though it was probably the worst timing (COVID-wise). Searching around LinkedIn internship positions around Geneva and Lausanne, I stumbled upon the offer from impactIA Foundation. I applied with the click of a button, and less than two hours later I got a message asking to set up an interview, and half an hour after that I was on a Zoom call with Laura Venchiarutti Tocmacov, the co-founder and CEO of the foundation. We got on well from the start, and she asked me how long I would like the internship to last, at what rate I would like to work and what salary I would like. I was taken aback, this was my first experience of applying to a job and surely this wasn’t normal. I quickly learned that nothing is ‘normal’ at impactIA, and it is a truly special place to work.
From the start, we were given big responsibilities such as interacting with clients without supervision and carrying out our own decisions in projects. Being valued so quickly in an internship position is invaluable, as it really gives you the confidence to perform at your best. Back in October, I wrote about ‘new ways of working’ and how the foundation is embracing a modern ‘work-life’ balance. Having the flexibility to work my hours when I wanted, and where I wanted enabled me to really focus and be productive while I was working.
I have learnt so much during this internship. I might have already mentioned this in a previous blog, but my pursuit of the Cognitive Science pathway in my Bachelors degree meant that while my peers were learning about the foundations of Computer Science (using the terminal, Git, software engineering, etc.), I was learning about neuroscience. This internship gave me the opportunity to learn a lot in this area that I was previously lacking experience in. Furthermore, it was great to apply the techniques we learned in our course to real-world problems. I spoke about how real-world data is messy and how much harder it is to apply these techniques outside of the classroom in a previous blog.
Another big part of the internship involved the educational aspect of the foundation. Through our aiXlr8 program, which I discuss in depth here, as well as interventions at schools and universities, we gave several presentations for introducing Artificial Intelligence to technical and non-technical audiences. That was nerve-racking, but also very rewarding.
It’s funny to look back at how my preferences changed over time, as reality caught up with my desires and expectations. Initially, Imperial was my top choice. After the rejection, I turned to UCL and decided that was the best fit (considering my aspirations to work at DeepMind). After the alternative offer, I noticed that Edinburgh actually had the best course to match my interests (Computational Neuroscience), and so I was really keen on getting an offer from them. After I decided to postpone my Masters due to the disruption caused by COVID-19, I sought out an internship position, and was incredibly lucky to find impactIA. I also nonchalantly applied to a Masters at ETH/UZH, considering my chances of getting in close to 0. But lo and behold, I actually got in and this is now my reality. All this to say that, even though it’s important to have goals and dreams, it’s as important to accept the possibility of ‘defeat’ and ‘failure’, of alternative paths and alternative opportunities.
As the title of this blog indicates, this is only the end of the beginning. I’m happy to announce I will keep working for impactIA on a part-time basis as a Machine Learning Consultant, while I begin my Master studies in Zurich. I’d like to thank everyone at the impactIA Foundation for having created such a wonderful place to work and grow as a young AI practitioner, I’m excited for what the future holds.
