TIM BAKER:
Welcome to the Center for Data Science Admissions Podcast. I’m your host, Tim Baker.
KHASI:
My name is (UNKNOWN). I’m a second-year master’s student in the MS data science program.
TIM BAKER:
So, you applied in 2019 for the fall 2019 class. Was that your first time applying?
KHASI:
That was my first time applying, yes.
TIM BAKER:
OK. And how did you find the application experience?
KHASI:
I found it very straightforward. I also found the interview application period, very helpful because there was a lot of info sessions where we had access to some good information and I came into two of them, one after I was admitted and one before I think there was a virtual information session. I found it pretty good. The prompts that I was asked, I felt were very compelling. It gave me an opportunity to figure out my direction in data science as well as my interests. So, I felt like it was a good experience.
TIM BAKER:
Excellent. One of the questions that we get a lot from incoming applicants is who should they reach out to for their letters and what kind of questions should they be asking the people who are going to write their letters?
Do you have any advice that, you know, sort of people that you reached out to, how you went about getting your letters?
KHASI:
Yeah. So I asked two of my college professors for my letters of recommendation, I asked previous employee. First inclination is you definitely want to ask people who you feel like have a good understanding of who you are and what your interests are. I feel like it’s a lot more difficult for you to ask for a recommendation from somebody who only kind of knows you. A good example is I didn’t ask professors who I felt were the ones who I had the best grades in their classes. I asked professors who I felt I had the most interactions with and the best relationships with. Similarly, I asked my boss because I felt like she and I had a lot of conversations and we had a lot of actual one to one face time. And I think if you’re in a situation where you might never had a lot of face time with a professor but you might have a professor in mind or a person in mind, I think a really good way to help have a recommendation that really reflects who you are and what your passions are is I sent a draft of my personal statement to all the people who I asked for recommendations and they were very helpful.
It helped them kind of figure out what direction I was going in, helped them get a good idea of how to help me at the same time.
TIM BAKER:
That’s actually really good advice. That’s the first time somebody has actually mentioned that, but I think it’s really helpful when you have a cohesive story going through. Right. Because you want your personal statement and what they’re saying to line up. So thank you for sharing that.
KHASI:
Yes, no problem.
TIM BAKER:
I think that’s one of the really important things. Do you have any other advice for people who are preparing their applications, who might be nervous and sort of fretting over the details of the application?
KHASI:
From my experience, I would definitely say be honest and (UNKNOWN) to what your strengths are not to where you’re expecting a reader to want. I think in my example, I am coming from a background where I was teaching and I was not coming from a background as an analyst or somebody who was like a professional (UNKNOWN). But what I talked about was how much I really wanted to leverage the data I had (UNKNOWN) in teaching and explored it on a bigger scale to actually do something that was larger than my current situation was.
And I didn’t try to play up strengths that I didn’t have. I was very honest in this is the position I have and this is where I want to get in the program because I feel like I have these skills that I can make even better by being in this program. So I would say definitely I know people get bogged down about how to prepare like their essays and I would say everything that you want to write in your essay should be as much you as you are when you’re watching TV.
TIM BAKER:
That’s good advice. So you said you were teaching before coming into the program. How was your transition going from leaving the classroom to then being a student in the classroom and just being in an academic program again?
KHASI:
Oh, wow. So coming in it was interesting. I can’t say it was challenging. I think it was me changing the way I thought. It went from me marking, you know, problem sets and designing curriculum to me thinking about homework and me having to do the homework instead of mark it. But the (INAUDIBLE) is that in the very beginning of the semester I felt very supported by the staff.
(UNKNOWN) opportunity to speak to like you or Loraine or Kathryn, about different things that were probably going to take me outside of the classroom and have me worry about things that weren’t just about academia. So I felt like that really helped the adjustment and allowed me to kind of just focus on figuring out how to be a student again. And I would say definitely leveraging the staff made it a lot easier as time went on.
TIM BAKER:
Well, if I remember correctly you were already in New York when you got in. So are you a lifetime New Yorker?
KHASI:
No, interestingly I was in New York when I got in but I did go back to Jamaica, my home country, for a couple of months before.
TIM BAKER:
So I guess what advice would you have for somebody coming to New York for the first time, you know, and maybe house search advice that you might be able to offer.
KHASI::
Sure. For coming to New York I would say there are three big things. I’d say one, you definitely want to give yourself an appropriate amount of time to get comfortable with how to move around the city.
When I moved to New York initially I was coming from Poughkeepsie and moving around the city in New York is so different than moving around in any other country or any other place, not just with the trains and transit, but, you know, you have to get used to train time being kind of a concept more than a reality.
You know, you have to get used to buses being in certain places versus in other places and kind of understanding that transportation in New York is very different. And I feel like that’s one of the things people struggle with when they initially get here, is that getting around in New York is not directly tied to what Google Maps is telling you. So I definitely suggest popping in a couple, if you can, a couple of weeks earlier, if you’re available. I always say, like when you’re house hunting one of the bigger things I always asked and I house hunted when I was not in New York before I got my first New York apartment was you should have a list of what you think are basic amenities that you have to have to be able to live comfortably.
Then have a list of things that you would want and kind of have a very strict definition between both. New York tends to be very expensive depending on where you live and taking into transportation consideration a lot of times you might find somewhere that might be very good but you have an hour commute in. And I think definitely it’s important to kind of think about like, what’s the community I’m going to be living in? Am I going to be close to a train, which is a big thing. Am I going to be close to a supermarket? Am I going to have to walk really far to go to get laundry? I think there are some smaller minutia more than just where you live and how much you’re paying which can completely change your quality of life.
TIM BAKER:
Yeah, I completely mirror that sentiment. When I first moved here I did that a lot. Like I found a cheap apartment that’s a great apartment but there was no supermarket in the neighborhood or, you know, everything I did was 45 minutes away. So I think, yeah, that’s great advice for things to take into consideration.
So now that you’re at CDS can you let us knowwhat a day in the life is like for an MA student at the Center for Data Science?
KHASI:
Yeah, sure. I think it took me about three or four weeks to get into a groove. I think the first three or four weeks were a bit (UNKNOWN) of actual academia, were not necessarily challenging but it required you to kind of rethink how your days go. There’s a lot of free time outside of class because you’re only really doing three courses. And I did like four courses in my undergraduate and I was in clubs and I was doing all these different things. But even though you only are only meeting, you know, once for a lecture and one more time for a lab, you really want to kind of think about how you’re going to pass (UNKNOWN) the time around it because apart from just, you know, being a student. There’s a lot of other interesting things that happens, like there’s the luncheon talks that you might want to go to if you’re interested in certain topics that you have no idea, you might want to go to a lot of the Friday career stuff that Lorraine puts on and you have to kind of plan your time around how to get everything done.
I think my biggest thing was time management. Once you’ve figured out time management around your courses, life became so much easier. You kind of have to figure out in the first couple weeks. Like my machine learning homework might take me a lot longer than my (UNKNOWN) homework or vice versa and whatever that might be. You have to kind of figure out how much time do I need to commit, what are the office hours times? If I spend X amount of time on this problem set, I might need to do this first so I can probably pop into office hours and ask some questions. So timing was a big thing for me.
TIM BAKER:
So it sounds like you were able to find a pretty good work-life balance (UNKNOWN)?
KHASI:
Yeah.
TIM BAKER:
How would you describe the culture at CDS in general both within the classroom and socially, just the general atmosphere around the center. Going to find a lot of students out there working a lot of the time, but many people are open to kind of ask and answer questions, which I found to be a blessing for my situation because I came in without having a heavy coding background.
KHASI:
And there were a lot of times I needed to ask coding questions and people in this space were very welcoming to having you come by and say, listen, I don’t know how to get this algorithm to work and do you have any suggestion, the people are very helpful. And outside of just the regular day-to-day of like people being helpful, a lot of the people who were in my cohort we spent a lot of time, we get drinks, we get dinner outside of that after the (UNKNOWN) have a relatively good time trying to separate the work from the life. I think the culture was really good. I felt very invited and I feel like there’s a lot of people who go out of their way to make the situation feel very inviting and comforting.
TIM BAKER:
And then so you mentioned that you were originally from Jamaica. What are the sort of like benefits and challenges for an international student living in New York City?
KHASI:
So the quick benefits is New York has been the favorite place I’ve lived for my entire life just because you see so much that you never would.
Jamaica is a small island. It’s like 2.7 million of us. And I get to see so much and experience so much. I’m a big art head, I’m a big music head and New York is a city filled with art and music. So I had every opportunity to see and learn that. Some of the challenge is definitely the fact that New York is extremely fast-paced compared to a lot of places and you have to kind of get used to people being, I’m not going to say callous, but the New York sentiment is everybody’s kind of getting to where they have to get to and people are kind of trying to get done what they have to get done, which is a big issue for me. The biggest challenge is kind of realizing things are a bit faster and things are a bit more active and you kind of have to take initiative if you want to get certain things done in certain ways.
TIM BAKER:
Cool. Thank you. Have you been able to do any research during your time at the Center for Data Science?
KHASI:
Yeah. I’m doing research this summer with the Center for Behavioral Psychology, (UNKNOWN).
TIM BAKER:
OK. And how did you go about securing your research opportunity?
KHASI:
So I got my research position through CDS’ Summer Research Initiative to work with Professor Rizzo over in the psychology department measuring kind of metrics of racial equality. There was a job fair or a research fair at CDS where you had an opportunity to go and talk to a couple different members of the research community in different fields that aren’t just data science, so psychology, you have some of the performances from (UNKNOWN), from economics, from (UNKNOWN), from Math. And through talking with all these different professors and talking with all these different postdocs, I got the opportunity to kind of leverage what my skills were. And after talking with them I got a position for this summer working in measuring metrics of racial inequality and doing a lot of data engineering and analysis for some stuff I’m actually pretty passionate and it’s pretty good.
TIM BAKER:
Very cool. So sort of in the final questions now, these are three questions that I’m asking everybody on the way out.
Why did you ultimately decide to come to the Center for Data Science?
KHASI:
Well, firstly, apart from just being an academically rigorous program, I do feel like there are many, many ways where the staff or professors kind of go out of their way to try to make situations more accessible or try to give you more access to things. I think about all the times where professors were really there at office hours and office hours were like an opportunity to kind of like teach you. And I didn’t know that going in but what I did know going in was that there were so many opportunities where I was getting information that I wanted to get even before I stepped onto campus, whether it was through you or through Catherine or through the emails and info sessions. And I felt before jumping in very supported because I got into three programs and NYU was the only program consistently being like, here’s more information on this, and here’s more information on this. And I felt like it was preparing me for whatever I was stepping into, which was (UNKNOWN) big decision also in New York.
I also read that their career facilities were very, very good and it was. Like, I feel like there’s a lot of access to like the job boards and lots of access to information about go to this workshop if you really need interview help skills, go to this workshop if you really are interested in learning another skill that you might be able to use in an interview. So I thought that was really good and I had heard good things about it before and it turned out to be true, so.
TIM BAKER:
Cool. Excellent. So this actually seems to be the question that throws people the most when I ask it and I’m not sure why because it’s just a personal preference. But what is the one thing that you recommend that people do when they come to New York City?
KHASI:
Oh, yeah. Definitely go on a food binge. 100% go on a food binge like there is cuisine from any corner of the earth in New York City. So go on a food binge and spend a week just going crazy. Eat some good food so that when you eventually start getting into school and all your eating is the groceries that you’ve been (UNKNOWN) in your fridge for two weeks or ramen or, you know, you would (UNKNOWN) a lot of good food.
But I say go on a food binge. That’s the best part of New York for me. The food here is incredible.
TIM BAKER:
Cool. Yeah, that a very popular answer as well. I mean, one of the things about CDS is you could walk like a three-block radius and pretty much eat the entire world.
KHASI:
Yep.
TIM BAKER:
Yeah. It’s pretty good. So last question. Just say any final advice or nuggets of wisdom that you might have for our 2021 applicants.
KHASI:
Yeah, sure. I would say definitely a big nugget of wisdom is if you’re applying to this program, it probably means that you feel like you check most of the boxes. I don’t think you need to check all the boxes. You know, be aware of what your strengths are, leverage them and be comfortable in your weaknesses because they’re going to get better as you spend more time. Also, I’d definitely say like lean on the members of faculty when you need information. I remember when I was applying, I was so concerned about visa stuff and I leveraged just the resources of NYU and it got rectified very quickly, which is great.
So I’d say definitely ask all the questions now because I feel like everybody has time to ask questions and you know, answer a call or send an email.
TIM BAKER:
Cool. Excellent. Well, thank you so much for being part of this. Really appreciate it. Yeah, no problem. Thank you for listening to the CDS Admissions Podcast. The music for the podcast was composed by the instrumental artist, Cryptic One. You can find his work at crypticone.bandcamp.com.