Hometown: Milpitas, CA
Major: Data Science
Domain Emphasis: Social Policy and Law
Data Science in Six Words: The exploration of anything you want.
Kyle set his sights on the data science major well before it became official — in 2015, when he first started working with the student teams at the Division of Data Sciences.
“Everyone was so passionate about getting this data science major set up, and I knew with this level of commitment, this was all I wanted to be studying at Berkeley,” he said. “The data science classes available the first semester were what really set the tone for me at Berkeley. In that first semester, I met so many future leaders of the data science program and they're absolutely the reason why I knew this program would be set up in time for me to graduate.”
Why did you choose Social Policy and Law for your domain emphasis?
I've always been very interested in public policy because of how much it shapes our society. I was very interested in learning how data science applications can be merged with the public policy process.
It's absolutely nice, but very rare, to be heard in academia as an undergrad.
What will you remember most about studying data science at Berkeley?
I'm going to remember the interactivity with the faculty. Coming into college, I always thought it was daunting to directly go up to professors to give feedback about coursework. After all, as an undergrad, what do I know compared to them? But studying data science has really challenged that perception. So many Connector professors were very humble about their (sometimes limited) data science experience, but that made the class very student-centric. It was also amazing to see in a bunch of data science classes where the instructors were very fluid about their coursework plans, adjusting things on the fly in response to students’ reactions. It's absolutely nice, but very rare, to be heard in academia as an undergrad so I greatly appreciate this.
How do you envision using your data science degree?
I will be working as a data science consultant for ZS Associates after graduation. I have always wanted to work on developing business strategies, and this is going to be an interesting hybrid role where my data scraping and modeling skills will be the main drivers in my work.