Looking Back: Reflective Essay

My name is Evan Perez,  I am a third-year Computer Science student studying at The City College of New York. Currently, I am continuing my summer internship with a startup called IQSpatial as a Machine Learning Engineer where I build data pipelines and experiment with computer vision and natural language processing machine learning models. In my free time, I like to shoot dark, street photography and lift weights. After graduating from City College, I plan to work as a Data Scientist in the satellite data analytics industry. Something I wish to gain from Writing for Engineers is to write more concisely as I notice that I tend to write too much, and I am often told I need to shorten my explanations and descriptions by mentors and supervisors. This is an important skill since explaining complicated topics in a simpler manner to an audience that may not have contextual knowledge is crucial to pitching products/services to clients.

One of our first major assignments in Writing for Engineers was to create a resume and cover letter for a job posting of our choice. I had a resume and cover letter written already so I was able to use those as a template for this assignment. I chose to create a resume and cover letter for Lockheed Martin’s AI/Machine Learning Engineering Internship position as I believed it was a good fit for me. To demonstrate this, I tailored both my resume and cover letter to the audience by matching keywords from the job description onto my documents. For example, the role preferred candidates with working experience using machine learning models and the Python programming language, so I made sure to include those keywords within my documents. I also added a short summary at the top of the resume to express my fields of interest in machine learning.

The most recent assignment we had was to write a lab report about dice probability. For this assignment, I chose to write about how picking a dice face sum values between 6 and 9 was more probable than picking edge sum values such as 2 and 12 due to dice values falling within a normal distribution. I experimented with two online dice by rolling them 100 times and calculating their sums after each roll, recording the data in a CSV file. I then used technology to write a program that would help me analyze and display my results. Within this assignment I performed a lot of reading with various articles and journals in order to develop my analysis for the lab experiment, exercising my informational literacy by researching past research done on dice probability using JSTOR. Combining my results and online resources to develop a well-written report helped me exercise my synthesis capabilities. I properly exercised citation within this assignment by citing my sources in a “references” page in APA format. After drafting the paper a few times, I was able to present my findings, proving my original hypothesis correct.

Next, I was asked to collaborate with a small team in order to write a group proposal for a new student center at CCNY. My main task in this project was to create an introduction that had a good hook and clearly outlined the problem we wanted to solve with our proposal. In my introduction, I highlighted the problems of overcrowding at CCNY which impacts both academic and recreational activities. I explained how students struggle to find spaces for quiet study, club activities, and socialization, leading to a decline in both academic performance and enjoyment of recreational time. We address this in our proposal by suggesting a new student center that would aim to enhance the quality of recreation and socialization, which would then improve the academic outcomes of students. I used two studies to support my claims, which showed that increased recreational activity correlates with better exam scores and job prospects. I properly exercised citation within this assignment by citing my sources in a “references” page in APA format.

Finally, the last big assignment we worked on in our class was a technical description project. In this project, we were asked to research a technical topic within our field of study and make a poster to present to our peers in class. For my topic, I chose to write about the YOLO algorithm, a popular topic within the world of Computer Vision and machine learning. In my presentation, I explained that computer vision is a sub-field of artificial intelligence that allows computers to interpret and analyze visual data and how it is used in things like autonomous vehicles, facial recognition, and surveillance. I then explained convolutional neural networks (CNN’s), a key part of computer vision algorithms, and focused on how they are used to process images and pick out features. I then highlighted the drawbacks of CNN’s such as slow processing time and significant background errors. I used this to transition to the YOLO algorithm, which stands for You Only Look Once, and emphasized the advantages it has over traditional CNN’s alone such as quicker processing and reduced background errors. I then explained the key components of the YOLO algorithm such as Residual Blocks, Bounding Box Regression, Intersection Over Union, and Non-Maximum Suppression. I was able to practice presenting to an audience since we needed to present to 5-6 groups of students on the day of our presentations. I properly exercised citation within this assignment by citing my sources in a “references” page in APA format. Combining my results and online resources to develop a well-written report helped me exercise my synthesis capabilities.

This semester, I had a lot of opportunities to improve my synthesis and presentation skills. I have seen myself go from wordy and unclear to clear and concise when I speak to others. I have been able to exercise presenting information at a high level and more importantly, I have been able to practice telling a story with anything I do. This course has helped me become a better engineer by allowing me to practice these skills in various settings.