9 - SoNIC Workshop Day 2

Although we had a rainy morning, we spent this time hearing from more professors and PhD students at Cornell. One of the main themes I have seen throughout the talks is that people who pursue a PhD often have a curiosity for research and like problem finding rather than problem solving. I think I would like to pursue a Master's or PhD but I am someone who prefers problem solving, as I enjoy the satisfaction of finding the solution to a problem. However, my interests may change in the future, so I am keeping an open mind towards graduate school.

One lecture I enjoyed today was given by Jon Kleinberg, a professor of CS and Interim dean of CIS (Cornell’s School of Computing and Information Science). He showed a data visualization of the friends of someone on Facebook and the connections between friends (mutual friends).

As someone who is minoring in Business Analytics, this map of depicting the connections between people really piqued my interest. It makes me want to recreate it myself using my data of Facebook friends.

Another professor covered the topic of bitcoin. The more I heard about it, the more it sounded like blockchain was a form of an immutable linked list.

We also viewed a data network center at Cornell. As I walked through rows of cable and boxes, I realized I barely know anything about how devices connect to the internet and how a network server works. It’s something I will have to YouTube later.