Carnegie Mellon: Most students choose their intended major or area of study based on a passion or inspiration that’s developed over time – what passion or inspiration led you to choose this area of s...

Carnegie Mellon: Most students choose their intended major or area of study based on a passion or inspiration that’s developed over time – what passion or inspiration led you to choose this area of study? (300 word maximum)

Throughout high school, I was a member of the Information Technology specialty center at my high school. At the start of the program, I knew very little about the field but was interested in trying a new opportunity. The program exposed me to a variety of facets of computer science. The courses included project management, hardware, and various programming courses for different languages. I was immersed in past and present technological feats, opening my eyes to how much of society is based on these complex but simple machines. From a script that outputs “Hello World!” to a script that changes the colors of the Bluetooth lights in one of the specialty center classrooms to the development of a private network in the school, computers possess limitless possibilities. Though, what truly caught my interest was something I worked on over the summer after my junior year. I was nervous to start my internship, but after a brief overview of the project I would be working on and setting up my desktop computer, I was eager to get started. Under the guidance of a professor at VCU, I began conducting research and developing scripts using Python and Linux. Throughout the project, I explored the field of computer vision and the use of Artificial Intelligence for image processing and analysis. The ability of an assortment of metals and plastics to process and manipulate images similar to how humans can was fascinating to me. Many of the scripts I created were to test various libraries for image segmentation and then measurement of the segments. My time in the lab flipped a switch in me as I learned about the importance and implications of computer vision. Spending months working with computer vision made me curious to further explore its significance in advancing our current technologies.