FAQ

Just some questions I get asked… a lot.

College

What is the “School of Information”?

University of Michigan’s School of Information is the perfect combination of tech and people. It lets students focus their technical skills on human-centric work, which I believe is the core of technology itself - who will be using this, how will they use it, how can it be used against them? Find out more info here!

why did you choose your minors?

Computer Science was a practical choice - I like to code and it’s a fun (and often very arduous challenge) to build something that can do something else - something that serves some purpose. I imagine it’s how a carpenter feels when they make a really cool chair - a less physical materialization, but very rewarding.

Gender Studies was a passion choice. It was a fun way for me to get a break from my technical classes, read some mind-blowing essays, think critically, and write long papers. I got to take cool classes like “Love, Sex, and Desire in the Digital Age” and “Feminist Political Theory”. I loved it!

what’s the best class you took in college?

One of my favorite classes I took in college was called “Algorithms and Society”. It was all about how different algorithms that exist and are used today in different fields can disproportionately harm minorities. What happens when your social media starts filtering out opinions that are different from yours? What does it mean when facial recognition can’t find a Black face? I learned a lot in that class, and I think it’s a topic every tech-related person (and honestly non-tech people too) should be expose to.

Professional

What excites you about working with data?

To me, data analysis has always seemed like coding with a purpose. There’s a question you’re trying to answer, a pattern you’re uncovering out to build a story, a visualization you’re creating to inform. There’s an audience in mind, and you’re taking a massive amount of nothing and making into something useful, which I really enjoy. I feel like when you’re given a dataset there is so much possibility and room for creativity (which sometimes feels rare in a technical role), it’s almost like a treasure hunt - the reward is answering the questions, but digging out those answers is all part of the fun.

what do you look for in a company?

A fun, creative, and personal culture - something with a wide variety of passionate people throughout the company with an emphasis on being yourself and treating each other well. Work-wise, I’d look for fun and interesting projects coming at an exciting pace, opportunities to learn new things and smart people to learn them from, and the autonomy to explore and take on things that will stretch my skills.

what does a left join look like?

A classic and excellent question - a left join should take all of the original table you’re using (the left one, if you will) and also grab anything from the table you’re joining onto it (the right one) where a specific key matches between the two tables.

In SQL, should look something like this:

SELECT * FROM original_table LEFT JOIN new_table ON original_table.id = new_table.og_id

but I think it’s easier to think about it as a Venn diagram like this (please enjoy my drawing):

As a fun side note - this might look like it’s just the original table, but it’s not! A left join means that if multiple rows in the new table match on one id in the original table, multiple rows will show up in the join with that id, and if no rows in the new table match an id in the original, they will just be filled in with “null”.

Personal

How do you like chicago?

Oh man, I love it here. I was admittedly unsure about it when I first moved here but now I simply cannot get enough. The people, the neighborhoods, the food and bar scene, the lake?? A Chicago dog?!! What’s not to love?

how tall are you?

A strong and sturdy 5’1, maybe even 5’2 on a good day. Thanks for asking.

are you from canada?

No, I just have a really solid Michigan accent. I’m more of an “ope” girl than an “eh” girl.