Getting into Stanford, Working Alongside Walmart, and Machine Learning Projects
December Newsletter
Hey! If you’re new here, I’m a 17-year-old design engineer, writer, and entrepreneur. Currently, I’m building tech for the AI/ML and Web 3.0 space while co-founding a startup. Previously, I’ve built an app awarded by the U.S. Congress, been published in the New York Times, and won the World Series of Innovation for my fintech startup :)
Stanford, Suprises, and Surrealism
December 16th, 3:59 PM
I’m pacing around my living room with the voice in my head catastrophizing about the worst-case scenario: “We regret to inform you…”, the imaginary screen in my head reads. Ever since I was little, I’ve grown up with immigrant parents who wished the best for me: the best life, the best career, and inevitably, the best education. Because this is the American Dream. This is what they sacrificed for. And I wanted to make them proud.
4:00 PM
You could cut the tension with a knife. I see the big red “View Status Update” button on the screen, hold my breath, and click it…
*cue the sudden shock on my face, the immediate screaming and collapse into tears, and my parents literally not believing me when I run to tell them the news*
Not to be dramatic, but speaking on behalf of myself, my friends, and probably a lot of other seniors, it really does feel like your entire life has been leading up to a moment like this. So it feels incredibly surreal and satisfying when you reach this point and you realize that all the work you put in has been worth it—I’m overwhelmed with gratitude.
For those about to go through the same college process, here’s my general advice:
DO: Have a theme or “spike” (colleges want a well-rounded class, not necessarily well-rounded students); be genuine (sounds cliché, but being real to yourself and even showing vulnerability makes SUCH a big difference); weave your personality into your application, especially in your essays (e.g. don’t be afraid to use a little humor)
DON’T: Do extracurriculars just for the sake of doing extracurriculars (admissions officers can see right through that); feel pressured to do things you don’t actually enjoy (at the end of the day, there’s still a chance you won’t get into your dream school; if that’s the case, you don’t want to have wasted your high school years doing things you didn’t even like); compare yourself to others (also sounds cliché, but you have no idea how much unnecessary stress you place on yourself when you do this; it has absolutely no use since you can never predict who a college is going to accept)
And if you ever want to chat about the college application process, feel free to reach out!
Reimagining Retail for Walmart’s Innovation Lab
In December, I had the wonderful opportunity to work alongside Walmart Blue Labs, Walmart’s innovation incubator created to strive toward disruptive and radical innovations that will transform the future of retail. Our challenge was to determine how Walmart can improve the customer experience by developing simple & scalable in-store digital touchpoints that further connect customers to their digital journey.
Together with
, Ọdúntan, and Preston Davis, we proposed an in-store navigation that generates the most efficient path based on a user’s shopping list. Within 3 weeks, we put together an app prototype, an A* pathfinding algorithm built with Python and Pygame, and a consulting deck with our suggestions for how Walmart can implement this tech and take advantage of the opportunity.Neural Networks, ML UX, and Other Machine Learning Projects
Lately, I’ve been diving deep into my work with AI (with an emphasis on machine learning and product design). Building at the intersection of ML and design engineering, it’s crazy to see how little focus is placed on the area where these two disciplines meet, which has the potential to change how we all interact with AI-driven products in the future. So I decided to write an article on the topic, which I’m grateful to say has gotten published in UX Collective, the largest design publication on Medium. Here’s the article :)
I also filmed and edited a little something titled “Neural Networks Explained: Building a Multilayer Perceptron”, breaking down neural networks in 3 minutes and dissecting their basic structure. (Fun fact: I almost died filming it…but that’s a story for another time).
Snippets :·゚
Monthly favorites & media that I’m consuming
📖 Currently reading:
Cloudmoney: Cash, Cards, Crypto, and the War for Our Wallets by Brett Scott—great read about the reach of big tech and big finance into our lives
Life on Mars: Poems by Tracy K. Smith—managed to write an 8-page paper on just 1 of these poems; the entire collection is wonderful
🎥 Film & television: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery—there’s a reason why Twitter can’t stop talking about it
🎧 Podcast: Noam Brown: AI vs. Humans in Poker and Games of Strategic Negotiation (Lex Fridman Podcast)
🧠 Articles/Vids:
Apple Design Part 1: Skeuomorphism and Apple Design Part 2: Beyond Flat (jerry woo hu): A really interesting series on the history of design at Apple, a company with arguably some of the best-designed products in the world
Big Ideas in Tech for 2023: An a16z Omnibus (Andreessen Horowitz): If you’re even remotely interested in startups, emerging tech, and the future, this is a must read
The Fastest Growing SaaS Startup in History | deel (Eo): A very insightful, inspiring underdog story about an incredibly successful startup
Next Month
In January, a few Stanford early admits and I are planning to take a spontaneous trip and rent an Airbnb in the Bay Area; while I’m there, I hope to meet up with some cool folks in the tech and startup scene (let me know if you’re there and open to chatting!). I’ll also be working on more AI projects, as always. Happy New Year! 🥂
💡 Where to find me: LinkedIn • Twitter • Website • Instagram
Huge congrats on Stanford! I really love what you said about not wasting your high school years - it's easy to forget that college decisions are just part of the results & not the end goal. I've absolutely seen people take on activities they dislike for the sake of "making the most" out of their 4 years, even though it ironically does the opposite (myself included...I'm not proud of it, but you've definitely inspired me to change that!)
ps: I'd love to meet up for an irl braindate - lmk which part of the Bay you'll be staying in!
Congrats on Stanford Tina! You'll flourish in the very entrepreneurial environment. Best of luck on your journey.