Welcome to Digication Scholars Conversations.
I'm your host, Jeff Yan.
In this episode, you will hear part one of my conversation with Clea Ramos, a
student studying Computer Engineering and Studio Arts at Bucknell University.
More links and information about today's conversation can be found on Digication's
Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Full episodes of Digication Scholars Conversations can be found on
YouTube or your favorite podcast app.
Welcome to Digication Scholars Conversations.
I'm your host, Jeff Yan.
My guest today is Clea Ramos, a student studying computer engineering and
studio art at Bucknell University.
Hello, Clea.
Hello.
It's nice to meet you.
Thank you for having me.
I am so happy that you're here.
Um, I have been, uh, working with and collaborating with your, one of your
professors, uh, Rebecca Thomas, who is actually also a, um, prior Digication
Scholars Conversations guests.
Um, and we often talk about you know, the, the, the kind of, um, pedagogical,
uh, approach that she has, you know, for her students and then some, and,
and which we both admire, but then, you know, sometimes you talk about
who are some of your students that are doing really great work and she had, I
feel very grateful that she had shared three portfolios that you have created.
Um, I, I saw them.
I. You know, I, I read them and, uh, I was so inspired and I said, Hey,
um, Rebecca, would you mind if, can we have her on the Digication Scholars?
And that's how this came to be.
And thank you for, you know, making yourself available.
So you are a senior.
Yes.
Um, so are you majoring both in computer engineering and studio arts?
I am majoring in computer engineering and because I've always taken art in
elementary school and high school, I wanted to pursue arts, especially at a
Liberal Arts Institution at Bucknell.
I was able to take, uh, five art classes, so I'm minoring in studio art,
mostly focusing on the digital arts.
That's awesome.
So tell me a little bit about yourself.
I. I, I want to say that you, um, you, you have a connection
with, you, are you a Filipino?
Maybe you have families from the Philippines.
Is that correct?
Yeah.
So my parents are immigrants, um, and I'm a first generation student.
So I grew up in Stanford, Connecticut and went to school there.
And um, I'm now at Bucknell University.
So I, uh, really pride myself on being Filipino and even at Bucknell, I'm a part
of the Filipino student association here.
And so you're, you're parents are immigrants, you're a first gen, you
know, U. S., you know, you grew up, you, you said you were born here?
Yes, I was born here.
And, um, what was that experience like for you?
Yeah, so, uh, elementary school, I have an older brother, we went to a small private
school called Waterside School and it was a school that prioritized minorities.
So I grew up in a really tight knit community where everyone knew each
other and that school, um, helped minority and people of culture go
into a really good private schools for middle school and high school.
So then I went on to Greenwich Academy and my brother went on
to its brother school, Brunswick.
So we both grew up going to that environment.
And there I was able to learn more about, um.
Engineering and art and where I found my passions there and then since then,
from my high school to Bucknell, um, because those, my high school and
Bucknell are predominantly white, I really wanted to stay in touch with
the cultural side because I grew up with that in my elementary school.
So me and a few friends at Bucknell came together and we saw Asian
galas happening, all of these events happening with all their culturals
and we wanted to participate.
So we created, um, the Philippine student association and we have, uh, bi-weekly
meetings where we help, um, advocate for Filipino culture and have fun events.
And we're participating in an Asian gala soon.
That is awesome.
I am a huge, huge fan of Filipino foods.
Yes.
What is your favorite?
Chicken adobo.
Yes, I do love chicken adobo.
My favorite is sinigang.
It's a sour soup.
Yes, I know that.
Yeah, I love it.
Yeah.
That's awesome.
I myself from, um, grew up in Hong Kong and then I moved here.
So like this, I am the first gen, you know, immigrants in my family,
first gen college attendee as well.
So I really love that you are taking that culture, um, that you are so
proud of and making something of it.
I think that's, that's really, that's really amazing.
I would say that one of the things that I was so drawn by your work
and your portfolio is, is that you do a lot of reflections.
The portfolios I saw.
Um, I know that you, you have those portfolios and then you have another
portfolio that linked to a notion site.
Um, that is your art portfolio as well.
Um, it's amazing to see all of these different, you know, linkages, you know,
everywhere, um, one of the things that I was, you know, after seeing all three
of your portfolios, I really flicked through every page, by the way, um, I
read, I read all of it and, um, what's really the consistent sense of, you know,
what you do to reflect on your learning.
I remember so vividly that.
In one of your projects, it was about provide a way to, to
monitor the health of water.
Um, right.
And in some of your finding at the end, you go, well, you know,
like we have some limitations in.
The hardware that we have available to us and, and the technology and
so on, but you were able to, you, you learned quite a bit from it.
Um, but those things that you learn that I thought were the most interesting were
things like iterative design process.
Um, how you communicate, um, how are you as a leader?
How do you do time management?
How do you think about collaboration?
And yes, you also have the experience of dealing, you know,
learning the technical skills of.
Working with the limitations of the, the, the technology that you
had available to you at the time.
But those are the kinds of things like the microcontroller system, you know?
Yeah.
But those are the kinds of things that, um, in many ways, that's the thing that is
going to continue to change very quickly.
In fact, I bet you that if you were doing the project this, this spring again.
It's already different, right?
Because there will be a better microcontroller.
There will be a better circuit board.
There will be a better set of technologies available to you, right?
And maybe the condition would have changed.
You would work with different people, right?
But it's all of those skills that is about, um, you know, your own learning
process that feels like is, Is one that is constantly built one after on top of the
other, like that to me is what I got out of, like, after reading these portfolios.
What do you think about that?
Yes.
So I remember coming in my freshman year, spring semester, when I had my first
ECEG - Electrical and Computer Engineering course with Professor Rebecca Thomas.
And throughout that whole semester, we were tasked to create a, uh, ePortfolios.
I think that was probably the first year it launched at
Bucknell, so we were all new to it.
So we were wondering, oh, what do we put on here?
We're not too familiar how it works, but we worked on it since
the beginning of the semester and built on it, um, every few weeks.
And it corresponded to writing down what we wanted to do as a career
and finding someone to interview on a career we're interested in.
And through that process, like, Um, looking at, uh, research
videos, research articles and reflecting on what we want to do.
And I think that was the first time I've reflected like that
in an engineering context.
So from there, that was the first ePortfolio I've done.
And at the end I had a record of, um, how I thought about my careers and my interest
and how that applied to what I value.
So I valued doing something creative.
I value being able to do both technical and art.
And that reflection process is something that you typically don't get in
other STEM classes, such as math or more technical engineering classes.
So I find it a very valuable skill, especially as I moved on to higher level
engineering classes where you're still doing technical work, but sometimes it's
too technical to the point where you don't realize the bigger context of it and
how it fits in with real world problems.
So, the ePortfolio that you were mentioning in that project, the
water monitoring system was for my junior design, um, electrical
engineering and computer engineering course, uh, last spring.
So, the problem are.
Professors gave for us was to choose one of the U. N. Sustainability goals
to create a potential solution for and our class chose the problem of providing
clean water and sanitation to all.
So the first half of the course wasn't actually making a technical solution.
The first part is reflecting on the bigger problem and the context as a
whole, identifying the stakeholders, the people involved, um, any
electrical, um, processes involved.
So that course, that part of the course, um, was really valuable to see how.
You can reflect and not only focus on the technical, but
that real, real world aspect.
And still today, I feel like I have a more, um, holistic view of how to
approach problems because of that reflection process in engineering
and that I, I see, I asked my other friends and other majors like mechanical
engineering or chemical engineering.
They don't really have as much of a, um, design track or a reflection
process as ECEG does, uh, ECEG being Electrical and Computer Engineering.
So I'm grateful how, for how much I've been able to reflect and show that in
my ePortfolios because I can always look back and not only see that technical
progress, but also that reflecting process of where did I get stuck?
How did I improve?
And then what really matters is how do I improve in the future too?
And what do I make of this?
What do I take from it going forward?
I was thinking about, I saw, I, one of the things that I read that it was so
interesting because I heard the same stories as well, which was, I think
you were saying something about, you know, your parents had told me of their
process of fetching water, you know, from wells and having to walk and, you
know, like they basically have to walk.
You know, through like, it's terrible is through hills and, and, and,
and, and bad weather conditions and whatnot, just to get water so that
you can bring back fetch water.
And my, my parents were, oh, my, my dad, his family, his family
were refugees from, from China.
During world war two and, um, they, they didn't have that water fetching
thing because they were living in Hong Kong, which is, you know,
sort of a pretty dense city, but oftentimes they will run out of water.
And so everyone has to go get in line to get water.
And I remember him.
Telling me that, you know, like, sometimes they don't even have the
instruments to carry the water.
So they just take plastic, like grocery bags, like plastic bags, just take water.
And sometimes they break after you get in line for hours and then get to it.
And then you're like, hopefully the plastic bag hold up and
then they can bring it home.
And, and to be honest, once you get home, what do you do with it?
You know, hold on to it.
A collapsible plastic bag, you know what I mean?
So I'm like hearing these stories and, and I could, I remember reading that
part and I'm thinking, you know, there is something that you can take that
experience that is so, even though you didn't, it came from your culture, it
came from, you know, like stories that you were able to get from your parents.
Uh, it probably means something a little bit different to you than to,
To others, you know, and it creates a different set of meaning to, to the work.
And I, I think that these are the types of things that create sort of a sense
of like purpose that drives the project that drives it differently from then.
If your professor just gave you, here's the problem, go solve it.
Yes.
You, you made this connection that goes, man, like.
Like, it's not just a problem to solve, but it's so critical because I can't
imagine going through life without that, without access to water and that
the alternative is to do that, like, that's not a good way to live, right?
Um, so it changes the way that you approach it, doesn't it?
It creates more value because, because you reflect on why this matters.
You're not doing it just for a class, just to get a grade.
You're doing it for the people who are in need, the people who don't have access
to this technology, to this clean water.
And that's why it's so important in the beginning to reflect on
who are the stakeholders and who does this project affect, because.
That is where you get that value for the project.
And sometime, one thing we did think about was that our system required wifi
because we wanted to push it to ThingSpeak or, um, an online service where you can
read the data of how clean your water is.
And we were also wondering, Oh, we wanted to place these devices in, um
developing countries or people like, yeah, just developing countries.
So we were wondering, Oh, do all of those places have access to wifi?
So it's also being considerate of the realistic resources that are available.
So we weren't able to interview anyone from the places that we
wanted to, potentially, per the project, but that's also important
getting real world, um, resources and having that connection to who you're
actually creating the product for.
And I, I think that there is something maybe even, I want to go
like a little bit more meta on this.
Um, I feel like that, you know, you have learned in that particular, oh, we
can pick this particular case, right?
Like you, you have this water project anyway, and then you were able to, to,
to give it more purpose by empathetically placing yourself in people's shoes,
because these are your parents.
Literal shoes and how they, that had to walk through, you know, you know,
like, you know, the streets and the, you know, difficult conditions to
even just to get access to water.
That's how it would, what it would be like if you don't have this.
Right.
So I think that this idea that, um, yeah, finding purpose and drive to it is,
is, is important, you know, but I also would point out one more thing, which.
I, I'm very interested in how students are finding new paths as they create their
neural pathways and how they think about the world and make sense of the world.
So in your case, there is also an abstracted path that sets If I come
across a new problem or a new thing that I want to solve in life or a new
way to think about the world, I can look into real world situation, people
I know, people, you know, um, things that I've experienced and use that
as a way to inform how I might drive, how to answer that question, right?
So it's one layer more abstracted than just saying, Oh, I know in
terms of water, this is the answer.
And I get that.
And I think everyone who'd be listening would be like, Oh, wow.
Yeah.
Like some listeners may identify with that.
Some would go this first time I ever heard of it.
As far as I know in the whole world, you turn on the tab and there comes water.
Right.
Um, and then there are people, by the way, that has taken that for granted
and didn't realize it in this city.
Right?
If you think about Flint in Michigan, right?
Yeah, we did that, but the water wasn't safe.
Right?
So everyone has different stories and they can, you can take that, but it's the
idea that you are, you have now created a new path that says, I'm going to be able
to take other experiences that I've had and then make these kinds of connections.
So to me, that is one layer, a more sophisticated Like two layers, more
sophisticated than just someone said, here's a project, solve it, right?
Here's a bunch of water, find a way to wirelessly, I don't know,
detect is contaminant or, you know, whether it's safe to drink.
And I think it's also trying to put yourself in the shoes of the people who
are going through this problem because like The empathy and the relationship.
Yeah, right.
Yeah.
Because one of the things that I think we can all work on here at Bucknell and,
and under engineering projects is that empathy and just being considerate of
who we're making these projects for and how are we designing for, for them, not
just so it works and it's functional, but to prioritize, um, the value it creates.
That's something that I really admire about Bucknell, being It has a very
strong engineering program and you're very brilliant professors who've, you
know, who are very accomplished, but at the same time, there is a, a very, um,
equally strong liberal arts, um, focus.
I want to talk a little bit about that.
Like I, I'd imagine that you have the choice and also probably the ability,
you know, to go to schools that are more purely engineering focused, more
technical, um, maybe less like, so the liberal arts, you know, sort of,
uh, influenced, um, institutions.
Why did you choose a place where The liberal art, you can't, you couldn't
just say, I'm going to ignore that.
I'm just going to do the engineering part.
Right.
Um, why did you choose that?
Yes, so when I was applying for colleges, um, my senior year, one
class that I took that I was really inspired by was my engineering
and design course in high school.
So that course was 'an intro to engineering' where we learned, uh, to
learn fabrication techniques such as laser cutting, 3D printing, working with
perf boards, bread boards, soldering.
But in addition to all of those technical components, we have
different projects for those.
We also got to do and incorporate artistic style to each one of those projects.
So one of the projects was a synthesizer or kind of a musically electronic device
that would play music when you turn it on, rotate the volume and sound.
And we got to it.
Decorate the enclosure of it.
So I had a really fun time using Adobe Photoshop and illustrator to
create those, um, that enclosure.
So not only was it artistic, it was also technical in that sense.
And because I love that class so much, my teachers and my advisor were
pushing me to go into engineering.
So one of the reasons I chose Bucknell was for its engineering program.
And also as I was searching, I saw Bucknell had a lot of opportunities
for the arts, even though it is small.
I did.
I wasn't sure if I wanted to pursue arts in college.
I just knew I wanted to do a computer engineering, or I actually came in
as a computer science major because I really enjoyed that problem solving
aspect of code and I knew Bucknell had strong engineering program,
but I came in as computer science.
Um, I wasn't sure if I wanted to do art because I was intimidated by the process
of getting graded by art because sometimes when I'm graded at doesn't feel like
uniquely me and I can do whatever I want, I'm doing it for someone else for a grade.
So I wasn't sure if I wanted to do art, but when I came in to Bucknell,
I saw that they had a Res. College Program, Residential Colleges.
So you can take a class with the people in your hall for your first semester
and get to know that community.
So I joined the Arts Res College and I got to know those people really
well and they're still friends.
I'm still really great friends with them to this day, like a whole
floor of us are still friends.
So that community and the size also made Bucknell very appealing because
everyone knows everyone and you have such unique connection to those
people because I also grew up in small environments, small schools.
And I also joined, um, a pre-orientation program with arts folks.
So having that arts was really important to me and I knew at
Bucknell I could achieve both of them.
So after learning more about the engineering program, I switched
from computer science, which is more software based, to computer engineering,
which is a combination of hardware and software, because my engineering
and design course in high school was more, um, electrical component based.
So I knew I wanted to do hands on components.
So that's where the microcontrollers and the sensors come in.
So that's why I came in as then computer engineering.
And then I started, um, pursuing a studio art degree or studio
art minor in my sophomore year.
And since then I've found a really great way to combine my design skills
because I've learned design in an engineering context and design in
an art context and graphic design.
And I find it really interesting the ways that you talk with your clients.
You talk with people that you need to interview for your project,
and then you keep iterating and iterating and going back, fixing
anything, any mistakes to improve it.
And you have this final project, but it's not, nothing is
ever really final in design.
You always keep iterating, you're only limited by time and resources.
So that's why I really love the connection between engineering and
art because of that creation process.
And Bucknell allows me to do that.
So, I'm really glad that I was able to pursue that and hopefully
take these skills to the next opportunity after Bucknell.
I love all of this.
And I think that it's so great that you.
You know, through this, all of these opportunities, I think that this idea of
you developing that sense of, you know, what kind of response, I think you wrote
somewhere, I want to be a responsible engineer or something like that.
So I'm going to do that effect, um, is.
Is, is so clear that it comes from this kind of grounding, you know,
I, I will say that, uh, in the, in the 2010s, I lived in Silicon Valley
for about 10 years and, and I will honestly say that I met some really
brilliant engineers, especially software engineers and, um, many of them with
advanced degrees and, and, you know, like feel like that they are certified
geniuses, you know, um, but, but they.
They are so well regarded by the big, you know, seven companies that
rules the, you know, the world of tech, um, that, you know, they get
paid so much money, they get, they get so many perks, um, that it was.
You know, that, that drive or that drive of, I want to be doing something
responsible or helping people and all of that sort of goes into the back burners.
And I, I really do think that there is a responsibility for education institutions
to make sure that that aspect of teaching does not get put into the back
burners or that you do it by having one.
Ethics course and, and call it done.
Um, you know, um, I, I, I think that it's extremely dangerous otherwise,
because then now we have extremely smart people yielding a huge amount of
power and a huge amount of influence.
Don't know what to do, right?
They, they don't, they haven't.
And I think I saw in one of your, um, actually I copied it
because I thought it was so cool.
You had said it was you described in a reflection.
I'm going to read it out because I, I thought it was really cool.
Let me find it.
It says, Throughout Project 2, I learned to develop creative thinking skills,
which was much different from Project 1, as we had a set, clear objective.
But in Project 2, we had to come up with our own questions and exploration paths.
We had to discover ways to solve our own questions.
So, that to me is a really, it's really, it's, it's something that
many, actually many schools don't do.
They don't let people do it because, because they just,
they have too many objectives.
They want to make sure their students get there.
And if you were to ask your own questions, you may not do their objectives, right?
And so.
Just for the sake of, you know, being efficient and make sure that they're
covering all of the checkboxes of things that they want you to cover.
They, they, they, uh, little bit thinking, well, you know, it's better that I
give you the problems, you solve it.
And then we know that you can solve the problem, but you don't get to
ask the questions, like you said, if you are always going to be very
good at solving problems, so I've, I've met a lot of people who.
are brilliant at solving problems.
In fact, you, you mention anything and they're like, I will solve it for you.
Whether you want them to solve it for you or not.
Um, but if you ask them, you know, what do you want to do, um,
they have a very difficult time.
Because it's almost like, They were never given a choice and to give any
experience to, to be good at that.
And I find that being able to ask questions is, um, it should be
pretty much, you know, as important as being able to answer them.
Yes.
But if we focus so much on being able to answer the questions and we're
not allowed to ask, like be the one asking the questions, it's difficult.
And I think that, you know, Education, if we look through
even our, it sounds like you had a wonderful K 12, you know, experience.
But if we look at most curriculum in general, at least traditional
curriculum, um, at least I can say that because yours may not be, have
been that way, is that students are rarely rewarded for asking questions.
Actually, there are Um, very often rewarded for answering questions.
In fact, that's what an exam looks like.
It's a bunch of questions.
Yes.
Um, it's not a bunch of, it's not a bunch of questions you get to ask.
It's a bunch of questions that you have to answer.
And there is a sort of a right answer typically.
Right.
And so it really reflects on how little our education system or
maybe even our society values the ability to ask questions.
Yes.
Because we test you on your ability to answer them, but we never test
you on your ability to ask them.
Mm hmm.
That's what I appreciate about what Bucknell has taught me through
the project courses because that quote you read was from my, that
Engineering 100 first course.
And I remember doing that like three years ago and.
So they didn't wait till you, they didn't say you must earn three years of credit.
Now you get to ask the question.
No.
Like right your own project.
Yes.
So I remember like trying to figure out having that experience was important
to be able to see what is valuable because we had all of this data.
We had our system working.
But what is valuable to show?
We have dates.
We have times.
Um, so Looking through and being able to pinpoint what do we think is best to show
and how do we show it was so valuable and then that carries on for the next
few years in the design tract as in, I don't, if you saw my EKG 201 portfolio
that was designing, like we made, um, the DAMS project, it is a acronym for
a machine that we build in sophomore design where we have to choose a, a, um,
Value choose a problem for it to solve.
So I made a color, a reader where you can read the color of things
and it has like an educational game component and with senior design.
Now, all of those questions, open ended questions that our professors
and curriculum have led us to those accumulate in our senior design project
where we're getting direction from a client, but it's also up to us to pinpoint
the things that our client may not have considered and ask those questions.
And even if the client proposes something, we should counteract that
and really consider it in relation to the whole project to see if it's
really good for the whole project.
So being able to question and really choose what is valuable and what
matters is something that Bucknell has really, prac ha has allowed me to
practice throughout our projects here.
And I too, that's why I love the, the program at Bucknell so much as well,
because it's, it is these abilities that to me is what's going to, um, to
create a world where, you know, we're doing it not purely based on whether I
can get a job or whether I'm going to get those perks or this, you know, you
know, the, the, whatever the, whatever the, the, the salary might be and so on.
It, it, there is a. Uh, uh, multiple drives.
I'm, I've, those are all things that you should consider, right?
I'm sure you're thinking you're senior now.
I don't know what your plans are yet, which we can talk about later, but
you know that you, you should think about those things, obviously, right?
But you also, I, I, I just have this feeling that you're also
not going to just blindly go into a job just because you're paid.
Um, and, and I feel like that, by the way, When I was, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm much older,
I'm sort of the last generation, right?
Um, my, I would say that, you know, my parents probably just, the,
the most important thing is just to get a job, get a good job, get
a job that pays well, hopefully.
Um, none of them, I would say, ever expected it to be, you know, to consider
a different dimension of success, like, do you make something that's
meaningful, that brings you fulfillment and joy and all that stuff, right?
Because for, for them, it's a lot more about, you know, if you
can make it up money, then you'll find the joy later, you know?
Yes, very different definitions of success from generation to generation.
Yes.
Yeah.
And I, so, so I, I, I think that that's something that, um, it's easy to get lost
in because we, we, we just have a culture of not putting a lot of emphasis on
that, being able to question things and, and being valued and then being, being
able to like get rewarded for that, you know, like if I were to give it, Okay.
Like, I, I, when I taught, I never gave exams, but if I were to give
exams, you know, half of it would have been about asking questions.
Just ask any questions, you know, um, and, uh, and, and, and, but we
don't do that because it's not the norm and it feels like getting to the
answer is the more important part.
Um, I actually think that, you know, like we.
People always talk about getting leaders and developing leadership skills.
Leaders that can't ask questions.
I don't know how they can lead, you know, like, like you can only lead
like in those cases, I feel like, okay, let's say you somehow get the
leadership skill, meaning you got people to, to do what you want them to do,
except that you don't know what to do.
So where are you leading them to?
Is it up, down, left or right?
Right.
And a good leader is always just thinking of multiple dimensions too.
It's not just what to do, it's what you have done in the past.
It's how can you improve.
So it's always asking questions, making sure you're in line with the team.
And sometimes also just being able to, to listen to other people's questions too...
'cause sometimes I'm, um, a project manager on my senior design team
and that involves like servant leadership, as they call it.
So you're like listening to what the people on your team have to say.
And how do you form that and like build on that and ask questions like, okay,
you told me you need this by this date.
How can I help you?
How can I do this for you?
Things like that.
So that is very important skill as a leader.
I agree.
Yes.
Yeah.
Amazing.
So I. I, I feel like if I don't tell you this now, you'd think that, you
know, like, why did I hide it from you?
I should share with you that I actually went to an art and design school as well.
So when you talked about your design process and I, when I read
about all them, oh, this is lovely.
You talked about the whole iterative process, but I think
that this is what new generations of students are all going to be.
I think they're all going to, um, amass multidisciplinary thinking processes.
So you've acquired a lot of this engineering and then like you just
talked about project management and then you talked about art and design.
You know, you talk about working with, you know, clients and, you know, having to
push back on their, their, their demands and, you know, these and then engineering
itself, you know, all of these.
different disciplines brings about, I believe they bring about sometimes
slightly different ways of looking at the world and different ways.
And I think Liberal Arts actually is the one that really tries to bring
together a lot of these different ways of thinking, you know, whether it be
through the lens of religion, whether it's through the lens of, you know, social
work, uh, whether the lens of law and society, right, history, but it could
also be about Microbiology, you know.
Um, And, and the different ways of thinking about the world allows, I
really believe that it allows us to just have many more tools on our tool belt
to be able to ask and answer questions.
But if we don't develop those.
You become fairly limited in how you can do that, right?
And some of it comes sort of comes like by default, like in your case,
your parents having had this experience of having to gather water is.
Is something that came by default for you through their
hard work, by the way, right?
But it came default for you and you can use it, which is fantastic, right?
So this, I think this is really where I know that right this minute.
Like, people are attacking DI and there's all kinds of issues around that right now.
But I really think that just the diverse thinking from all the different fields
and disciplines and studies and world experience, like lived experiences, is
what will make you a better contributor to society, because those are the
things you can draw upon, whereas if you don't have that, you can't, if you
didn't take that design or, you know, that design engineering course that,
you know, in your senior year in high school, you wouldn't have been able
to draw from that to know what to do next, you know, and And, and that to
me is, is going to be really critical.
I, I saw in one of your, um, internships, actually, I think in two, maybe not
just one, that you had worked on some areas where, um, there was one, I think
it was in a cybersecurity company and another in, um, I think it was like web
development or something, but it, yes, it.
At least one of them had something to do with AI, I think, the cyber security one.
There's the second one, um, it was a Machine Learning Internship
at Flowcode in New York.
Yes.
Right.
So.
Given, you know, where that's going, I think that's an interesting one
to maybe spend a little time on.
What are your thoughts on AI and what that means for you as, first
of all, as a student, but also as a student who's about to graduate?
I'm assuming you're about to graduate this summer?
Yes, this spring.
Um, this spring?
At the end of the spring semester?
By the way, before we deal with that, what's your plan?
What are you doing after?
So, I am currently job hunting and networking.
Uh, because of my interest in both tech and art, I'm looking
for a position to work in.
My first choice would be something in VR, XR, so Virtual Reality, and
Augmented Reality, because I have those skills and it's, I feel like I have
a niche combination of both tech and art, so something with VR development,
so some options would be, um, creating simulations or game design, uh, Another
option I've been looking into is web design, web development, because
again, that combination of coding and design, um, maybe software engineering.
So I've just been connecting and reaching out to alumni and professors.
So if you have an opportunity that, uh, lies around at the intersection of art
and STEM, I would love to hear about it.
So for anyone listening, um, if you, your neighbors, your friends, anyone,
you know, is looking for, I think that by now, if you listen in, I think it's like
40 minutes or so, um, you probably have gotten a really good feeling about Clea
and the type of people that, the type of person she is, but also, you know,
how, you know, today, I think being A pure engineer is simply not good enough.
It's an engineer with heart, with empathy, with the ability to reflect,
the ability to bring, bring her history and her lived experience
and even her culture and everything to it is what's going to make her.
I believe, you know, an ideal, really strong candidate for any of those
jobs that are related in those areas.
So if anyone's listening, we'll put your, uh, um, information into, into the show
notes, um, you know, contact her because, um, She'll, she'll get, I, I, I think
that you're going to get snatched up and you will have lots of offers and, um,
yeah, I don't think you should worry.
I hope so.
You, I, I think that you'll, you'll, you'll, you'll be, you'll be a
great find for lots of people.
Thank you.
Hopefully you're not too late.
Those who are listening and going, oh, I better con connect with her and we'll put
your LinkedIn profile and your portfolio has a LinkedIn link there as as well.
And your art, you know, link and all that.
Ra we'll, we'll listen.
Yes.
It's linked Everything.
Yep.
Here's a preview of what's coming up next In part two of my conversation
with Clea Ramos, a student studying computer engineering and studio
arts at Bucknell University.
I still have hope, you know, because, because I'm, I feel like what you were
saying, it's not enough to be just an engineer, you need to have all of those
skills and that interdisciplinary, which I think AI could never replace all of
those, like, human aspects that makes a person a person because what, how you
provide value in your work are, like you said, your past experience and your
identity, how all of those aspects of your identity and what you've been through
affect how you do your current work.
Which, AI could never have that, like, history built in.