CS371p Fall 2020: Amit Samuel

Where did you grow up?

I was born in Fairfax, Virginia and lived there until the age of 3. In 2001, my family and I moved to Plano, Texas. I spent my formative years in this Dallas suburb, usually playing basketball and video games.

What Kind of Highschool Did You Attend?

I spent the first 2 years of highschool at Williams Highschool and did my junior and serior year at Plano East Senior Highschool.

What was your favorite extracurricular activity in high school?

There were a few activities I pursued greatly in highschool. I was a student athlete. I played basketball for the first 2 years of highschool and threw discus in track & field for my entire tenure. I was also the president of our robotics club, and an active officer in our competitive coding team. However, one of my favorite activities was my participation in debate tounaments. I was a member of our speech & debate team and excelled in public forum debate and extemperaneous speaking.

Why did you come to UT?

When I discovered my passion for computer science in 10th grade, UT was always on my radar. It was a top 10 school for CS and one of the best in the world. It was also where my older brother had been attending during my 4 years in highschool. I knew it would be the perfect fit since it was close enough to home to still see my parents consistently, but far enough to start my life as an independent adult.

Why are you majoring in CS?

I always felt like computer sciecne was my destined path from the time I was little. Even when I didn’t know how to code, I always enjoyed building contraptions and using computers to automate them. Most of my familiy member are engineers or computer scientists, but the truth was that I didn’t really understand what they did or internalize that working with computers was their field. It wasn’t until 11th grade that I discovered how incorperated in CS my parents were. They developed operating systems, and did a lot of programming through out their lives. I didn’t really understand that until I decided to choose computer science on my own. So, I’ve always told myself that computer science and engineering runs through my blood, no one ever pushed me to do it, but I always gravitated towards it.

Why are you in this class?

I have a good understanding of DevOps and using programming tools from internsips, but I wanted to learn how to use a lot of them in my personal projects. I also wanted to have a better understanding of C++ to further my personal programming life.

What are your expectations of this class?

I expect to learn new tools and refine my knowledge of tools I already have experience with. I am also excited to learn how powerful object oriented programming is in the real world.

How much C++ do you already know?

I have quite a bit of experience using C++. I’ve used it in internships, I’ve used it in personal projects, and I’ve used it in other classes. However, it was the 3rd language that I learned (Java and Python being the first and second), and I feel like my grasp of the language isn’t as great as those other two. I’ve never really had an instructional course on it like I’ve had with some other languages, so that’s one of the reasons I look forward to this class.

How did you like the two lectures?

I thorougly enjoyed the first 2 lectures. I feel like a learned a lot in just those 2 hours, and Professor Downing makes it really easy to stay engaged and interested during class.

How did you feel about the cold calling?

I didn’t think I’d lik it, but Professor Downing seems to make cold calling fun. He isn’t judgemental and he genuinly just wants to have a conversation with you. Furthermore, since he does it do everyone, it may help calm peoples’ anxiety about speaking in class.

What made you happy this week?

I was happy with how much I’m looking forward to all my classes. In the past I would usually be stressed out about the grade of the class rather than learning the material. However, as a junior and senior, I feel I have reached the stage where I’m excited about attending a lecture to learn somtheing new about the field I love.

What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?

I learned through out this week, and the last few weeks about the general public’s angst regarding Autonomous Vehicles. This passed summer I had the opportunity to be an Autonomous Vehicle Software Architect Intern. In doing so, my whole world was opened up the the possibilities of CS. I got to be part of one of the most pressing topics in the tech industry. However, most of the world didn’t see it that way. Many people who aren’t exposed to CS are terrified of autonomous vehicles. Every one I talked to outside the tech industry voiced thier concerns to me about it. Some of them are valid, but a lot of them, I found, have to to with mistrust and misinformation. The general concensus in the tech world is that the final, perfected product of an autonomous vehicle will minimized deaths and injuries due to car accidents to virtually 0. Most car accidents happen due to human error, and AVs would remedy this. However, the companies creating these cars tend to keep most, or all, of the information regarding them a secret. That is mainly due to keeping valuable information from competitors, and rightfully so. However, in the process, you lose trust with your potential costumers. Low transperancy, combined with minimal accessibility of AVs has caused the public to be scepticle, even when presented with facts. While I was working this summer, I often drew the comparison between smartphones and AV’s. Both are marvles of modern computer science, both have the ability to make decisions for you, and both have immense control over the life of a person. For a smart phone, its the control over your most private information, and for AVs, its control over your body and decision making. Yet, as a society we tend to trust our smartphones. Why is this? Well, the simple answer is that nearly every one in the developed world, and many in the underdeveloped world have access to one, and more or less, understand the risks of having one. Humanity doesn’t have that relationship with AVs yet, and the growing pains and few fatal mistakes of AVs thus far has likely set that rapport back for years.