TIM BAKER:
Welcome to the Center for Data Science Admissions Podcast. I’m your host, Tim Baker.
SID:
I’m Sid. I am a masters in data science student. Master of science and data science, and I started last year in fall 2019 and I’m going into my second year right now.
TIM BAKER:
OK. And was last year the first time that you applied? Was that the first time you applied for the program?
SID:
Yeah, it was.
TIM BAKER:
It was. OK. And how did you find the application process?
SID:
It was pretty straightforward. Most standard things, really, we had like the jury. I’m an international student, so there were a couple of things that I had to do extra. I had to watch out for the telephone and there was something else too but I can’t remember what it was. But it was very, very standard.
TIM BAKER:
OK, and then one of the questions we get a lot from potential applicants are, you know, who should they reach out to for letters? You know what kind of question should they ask? How should they go about asking for the letters? Do you have any advice for students or applicants that are in that position right now?
SID:
Yeah. So my letter recommenders were two people that I have worked with and one professor from my undergrad. And the professor from my undergrad was someone who I had worked with a couple of times. It wasn’t someone I had worked with very closely, but they still knew me from one of my classes and the two people that I had worked with were one person that had directly supervised me, and the other person was the manager of the team, and I thought that was a pretty good balance. It kind of gave both sides of both the industry and the academic side of things to my application. And it also kind of showed both a high-level overall kind of thing and a low level, yeah, this person can work really well with other people. Something like that.
TIM BAKER:
OK, excellent. And then so you didn’t come straight from undergrad, you came from industry.
SID:
It’s kind of complicated with me. My last classes from my undergrad were in February 2019.
TIM BAKER:
OK.
SID:
When I actually got my degree on June of that year. And from February until August, September, when I started at NYU, I was working as a data engineer. So it’s kind of like a little bit of both.
TIM BAKER:
A little bit of both. OK. So what was the transition for you like coming to CVS from both worlds?
SID:
So from the undergrad side of things, it’s definitely a lot more work than I had in my undergrad, and it was a lot more structured work too, it felt. During my undergrad, I was in Germany, right, the undergrad programs there are a lot different and better undergrad programs than the US, and coming to a grad program was definitely like a change of pace. It was, OK, now you have homework, you have weekly assignments, you know, and you are supposed to do them. You have to do them for your grade. There was definitely a lot more structure to it for sure. From the industry side of things. It definitely helped that I was in the industry, first of all, I learned a lot of people skills while I was there that helped me out with opportunities at CDS like taking advantage of things. But because I was fresh out of undergrad, I didn’t really have that whole experience where you have your 9 to 5 every day and then you go back to being a student. So, I can’t really comment on that, unfortunately.
TIM BAKER:
OK. So you said you were in Germany before coming to NYU. Had you ever lived in New York before? Was that your first time?
SID:
No, that was my first time in New York. Yeah.
TIM BAKER:
OK. And what was that transition like? So coming to New York for your first time, what was how has that been for you? First-year in new york.
SID:
The actual moving process was pretty tough up until actually moving like the prelude was a lot more difficult than the actual moving because I also had to deal with stuff like visa issues and finding housing in New York and making sure that I was in New York for the beginning of the program and actually moving all my stuff over, like figuring out how am I gonna move all of these things across the ocean, you know? But once I got to New York, it was relatively easy. I mean, I had already lived in a big city before, so it wasn’t really that much of an adjustment for me. And I was in Berlin, so that’s also kind of a big city.
TIM BAKER:
Yeah.
SID:
It wasn’t that much of an adjustment for me, like being in New York, per say.
TIM BAKER:
OK, you mentioned the housing search.
SID:
Right.
TIM BAKER:
What was that like for somebody that’s not in New York City? What advice do you have for somebody like especially international students coming to New York looking for housing?
SID:
I got super lucky and I applied through grad housing and actually got it.
TIM BAKER:
Oh, wow.
SID:
I was very, very lucky. I definitely don’t know what I would have done exactly. I had like a few other plans in mind, like maybe finding other people from CDS who I could live with or talking to students who were already there, second years who could maybe help me out. But I just got really, really lucky with actually getting grad housing. And then once I got that, it was very simple to just like fill out the form, put in the deposit, and then just move over on the right day.
TIM BAKER:
OK. Were you in dorms or apartments?
SID:
It was kind of an apartment.
TIM BAKER:
It was okay.
SID:
I did have a roommate, though.
TIM BAKER:
You did. Was it Skytown?
SID:
No. I was at Washington Square Park. Oh, Washington Square Park. OK cool. So, It’s like right behind both library.
TIM BAKER:
OK. That’s actually not a bad walk at all.
SID:
Yeah, it’s about like ten, maybe 15-minute walk to CDS. So it was really, really convenient for me, and I really wanted that. Just being able to walk around and being relatively close to CDS.
TIM BAKER:
Yeah.
SID:
So I got pretty lucky there.
TIM BAKER:
Yeah, definitely. There’s not a lot of people like at the grad housing, so.
SID:
Yeah. We’ll see what happens this next year though, ’cause I’m pretty sure I’m not gonna get it. I think they have something that you can only get one year of grad housing.
TIM BAKER:
I think so, yeah.
SID:
Yeah, we’ll see what happens?
TIM BAKER:
Yeah, well, Brooklyn’s always a great place to live. As a Brooklyn resident, I’ll advocate for my borough. So. So what’s a day in the life like for an MS student at CBS?
SID:
Well, the average day is mostly composed of homework, sometimes, again, reviewing stuff that you didn’t understand. But for most of my first year, it was pretty much doing homework. It turns out that 1002 and 1014 for my first semester were a lot of homework, and then 1003 machine learning was also a very big part of my second semester.
TIM BAKER:
Yeah.
SID:
So yeah, that occupied a lot of my time and whenever I wasn’t doing that, I was pretty much looking for internships or something for me to work on over the summer, like some sort of research opportunity because I was really interested in that. So yeah, but it was the work-life balance was definitely more in the work side of things.
TIM BAKER:
Yeah.
SID:
But I also think that was a little bit by choice because I didn’t have to take those classes. I didn’t have to take 914, for instance.
TIM BAKER:
Yeah.
SID:
And I didn’t have to go look for an internship if i didn’t want to. I couldn’t also just sat back and relaxed a little bit.
TIM BAKER:
Yeah. So, I mean, you and I have discussed this, you know, offline, but you’ve had a bit of an interesting experience because you’ve been awarded an internship. But due to COVID, right, it was put on hold. What was the I guess more so like the process of finding an internship? What was that like?
SID:
I kind of have suspicions here that it’s a little bit different for international students because we’re international because an internship kind of leads to a job offer. Right. And I suspect that there might be a little bit more difficult for international students because there are some companies that are unable to offer sponsorship for a work visa later. So for me, it was super difficult to get stuff. I think I went through like 210 applications overall and something like 30 different assessments. But then in the end I did get two offers, so it was worth it definitely.
TIM BAKER:
Yeah, OK.
SID:
But yeah, it was a lot of work basically like taking a fourth class, I would say. And throughout my first semester if I wasn’t doing homework, I was applying to stuff pretty much.
TIM BAKER:
OK.
SID:
I eventually got something in November, so it was definitely like a lot of work up until then. But then like when I got to finals, it was a lot easier.
TIM BAKER:
Yeah. OK. And so in lieu of the internship this summer, you’re actually doing research, correct?
SID:
Right. Yeah.
TIM BAKER:
Yeah. And this is an opportunity through CDS.
SID:
Yeah, So…
TIM BAKER:
Can you tell us a little bit about that?
SID:
I’m actually working on two projects over the summer. One of them is to the CDS incubator. It’s basically implementing the Alpha Zero algorithm. I don’t know if you’re familiar. Basically, it’s like reinforcement learning to learn simple board games. And it was very famously used for go and for chess. We’re just trying to do it for something like Connect four. Which is a lot simpler, but also it makes it so that we can actually finish it over the summer, hopefully.
TIM BAKER:
Yeah.
SID:
And the other project that I’m working on is with Claudio Silva. He’s basically the sports analytics guy at CDS, and I’m working in his group with a PHD there called Peter. Peter, I think it’s pronounced Zinapolos. And I am working on CSGO Counterstrike basically like e-sports and predicting win probability for a round.
TIM BAKER:
OK.
SID:
So yeah.
TIM BAKER:
Cool. So in general, like, how did you find the culture at CDS?
SID:
OK. So the culture like, it’s kind of like ambivalent. Everyone’s very open to talking to you, but at the same time, everyone’s kind of reserved because they’re all working on their own stuff. So if you’re out there and, like, looking to talk to someone and who to talk to and you’ve sent them an email, they will reply and be like, Hey, yeah, let’s totally talk about this. Let’s set up a meeting, but nobody’s gonna reach out to you. You know, it’s not going to happen very organically, I would say. It’s like everyone kind of is in their own mountain of paperwork.
TIM BAKER:
Cool. So, you know, going through your application process, you finish it. Why did you ultimately decide to come to NYU and the Center for Data Science?
SID:
I had a couple of reasons. Mostly, I really, really wanted to live in the big city. And New York is pretty much the biggest city there is in the US. So I was really really excited about New York. And I was really excited about just having all of that opportunity ahead of me. You know, it just felt like New York was the place to be.
TIM BAKER:
OK
SID:
CDS also has a really, really great faculty. And obviously, it does, Professor Lagoon. I have no idea how to pronounce his name, you know, Professor Joe.
TIM BAKER:
OK. Can you?
SID:
Yes.
TIM BAKER:
Yeah.
SID:
I mean, there’s a lot of great faculty, and I felt like I was in the right spot, pretty much like I would have stuff for me to do. And it kind of proved true. There were a lot of opportunities that open themselves up to me at CDS and I definitely tried to take advantage of everything. So yeah. Worth it.
TIM BAKER:
OK. And so, you know, you said coming to New York was one of the big reasons. What do you recommend that people do when they come to New York? Everybody, whenever I ask somebody this question, they’re like, oh, my God, people are so different. They’re gonna have different views. Who cares? Like, what do you recommend?
SID:
I just really like walking around New York.
TIM BAKER:
OK.
SID:
If you take the subway somewhere, I mean, you kind of get to see the stuff that’s really far away from each other. But walking through New York definitely gives you a different experience.
TIM BAKER:
Yeah.
SID:
Just show you what the day-to-day is in the city, you know?
TIM BAKER:
Mm-hmm
SID:
And you also find a lot of really tiny things that really make the city come to life. So, I really like that.
TIM BAKER:
Cool. And then the last question is, do you have any final advice for somebody that’s applying?
SID:
Just take advantage of every opportunity that you can, pretty much. Go out, talk to people, send emails, work on your own stuff if you can’t get a hold of anyone you know. And just try and make the most of it pretty much.
TIM BAKER:
Cool. Excellent. Thank you so much.
SID:
No problem.
TIM BAKER:
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 Cryptic one.Bandcamp.com.