8 Questions with Eimear Crotty
Master’s of Science Computer Animation and Visual Effects Student, Bournemouth University
Eimear Crotty (she/her) studied at University College Cork where she received her Bachelor’s of Science in Computer Science in 2017 with First Class Honours. She did work placement at Teamwork.com in Cork and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge.
From 2017 to 2019, Eimear worked as a Site Reliability Engineer at Google. She is now pursuing a Master’s of Science in Computer Animation and Visual Effects at Bournemouth University, hoping to find out more about that tantalizing link between art and technology.
1. Where’s your hometown?
Cork.
2. How did you get into STEM?
I had wanted to study medicine for many of my school years, but two weeks before the CAO closed, I realized that my real dream was to study animation. The technical side interested me and, as a result, I decided to study Computer Science, which led me to my incredible job at Google.
3. What is a piece of advice that you have found especially useful?
Believe in your own ability.
4. What’s a challenge you’ve faced, and how did you deal with it?
My major challenge was starting to study Computer Science. It seemed that I was leaps and bounds behind everyone else; most other students in my class had years of programming experience behind them, and there I was in the lab on my first day at university asking the person beside me how to turn on the computer. (Thanks, Evan.) Although I feared that people would find out that I didn’t know much, I decided to be bold and ask questions. I knew there were other people who had the same questions as me. That choice to embrace asking questions helped me get to where I am today.
5. What’s something you’ve done that you’re really proud of?
I am so proud that I got to work at Google. It wasn’t something that I thought I could ever achieve, given my lack of programming experience before college. More specifically, I am so proud of how I handled the interviews. I managed to put my nerves behind me and have fun chats with all the engineers.
6. What are you most excited about right now, in or outside of STEM?
I am really excited about the research going into computer graphics. How can all of these ones and zeros create such beautiful images on screen? I’m diving into Vulkan and other graphics APIs to try and understand what really makes these GPUs tick.
7. What is your favorite source of inspiration?
Music. Nothing like a good session of karaoke to get the creativity flowing.
8. What is your favorite book or movie?
Favorite book: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
Favorite movie: Inside Out .(Oh, the feels.)
