responsesV2 - Sheet1.csv

Question,response
Why do you want to work at Riot games.,"Growing up games were my main source of entertainment. From video games to board games, I spent several hours a day playing them. Now that I am older, I don't play as much, but your internship provides an opportunity to revisit that childhood. But, instead of playing, I am part of a team that provides these games to people around the world and I am eager to hear back from you"
Why do you want to work at NASA.,"I have always been interested in space exploration especially the way how things are sent into space. Growing up, I would watch documentaries and movies about the solar system and space exploration like the moon landing and the Mars rover. This is why I am excited at the prospect of joining NASA to work on the technologies that send our astronauts into space. With a background in developing full-stack applications, machine-learning models, and database management, I bring a versatile skill set to the table. Additionally, I am familiar with agile methodologies through working as a scrum master where I facilitated cross-group collaboration, ensuring that they meet their planned deadlines. I believe I have the skills needed to be a great addition to your team and I am confident I will be able to adapt to any role that you provide to me.Most importantly, NASA has been one of the most prestigious organizations to work at with its achievements to speak for itself. Your commitment to international collaboration and innovation is something that I deeply admire which is why I believe NASA is the ideal environment for me to grow personally and professionally."
Why do you believe you are a good fit for this role?,"I believe I am a great candidate for the software engineering intern position as I demonstrate leadership, a passion for projects, and adaptability. With a versatile background, I have led and contributed to various projects such as a web application to help UCSC students find their lost items and an ML model to classify cars. Additionally, I am familiar with agile methodologies such as scrum through working as a scrum master where I facilitated cross-group collaboration, ensuring that they meet their planned deadlines. I have the skills listed in your qualifications and am confident I will adapt to my environment quickly. Overall, my blend of technical skills, an understanding of standard software development, and my ability to adapt to new technology will make me a great addition to your intern team."
Why are you interested in Nutanix?,"I am interested in Nutanix because I am interested in working on database systems. I have a good understanding of the intricacies of a database management system, experience with Kubernetes, and a strong understanding of C++. I also have experience working on project teams using scrum methodologies and writing efficient code. From what I heard about your advanced memory analytics project at UCSC, I am excited to learn more about the other projects. I am eager to hear back from you and hope you have a great rest of your week."
Why are you interested in Rocket Lawyer?,"Coming from a low-income family, Rocket Lawyer's mission of providing affordable legal services to small businesses and everyday workers resonates with me. I have heard many stories of big conglomerates taking advantage of smaller businesses since they had no money to fight back. I want to be able to use my skills to be able to help improve accessibility to these services you provide. I am confident I will be able to learn a lot of new technologies and be a great addition to your intern team. Thank you and I am eager to hear back from you."
Why interests you in Keyploy?,"I am interested in learning more about developing APIs since they are used everywhere. In my case, I want to develop APIs to help with my machine learning models as they provide better integration and security compared to just deploying it on something like Hugging Face. I recently have been working more on server-side communication in my project teams so APIs are something that has piqued my interest recently. Most importantly, I want to get mentorship to be able to help me take the next step to joining the workforce. I am confident I can learn a lot from this fellowship and I am eager to hear back from you."
Tell me about a time when you had to make a decision without all the information you needed.,"During my research project with Leilani Gilpin, I was tasked with doing exploratory data analysis around autonomous vehicle accidents. However, one problem we had was our current dataset was too small which could lead to unreliable results. I found another dataset but, it was missing the vehicle damage feature. So I decided to try to use the overlapping data to predict the vehicle damage. I created an ensemble model that used a support vector machine trained on the numerical data and OpenAi's newly released Gpt4o to predict vehicle damage resulting in an 80% accuracy. This allowed me to combine the datasets resulting in more accurate results in our data analysis."
How do you envision your career and how can Propel2Excel help make this become your reality?,"I envision getting into UC San Diego for my master's program with a focus on machine learning. Throughout my last year at UCSC and my master's program, Propel2Excel will provide me with a guidance on how to stand out and better showcase my skills to recruiters and hiring managers allowing my to get into the internship programs at my top companies. Additionally, I will be able to grow my network and learn soft skills to traverse the tech industry more efficiently. After graduating, I get a return offer from an internship and I hope to provide future propel2excel members with referrals and advice."
What are the biggest hurdles in your recruiting experience and why?,"One of the biggest hurdles in my recruiting experience was the lack of interviews due to the job market. Despite sending around 400 applications and cold emailing for referrals, I only got a handful of interviews. It was quite demotivating, but it was a bittersweet learning experience through these interviews and networking with recruiters and software engineers. It made me realize, I need to do more than just projects and classes."
Why are you a good candidate for Propel2Excel?,"I believe I am a strong candidate for Propel2Excel because of my passion for continuous learning and my goal of giving back to my community. I am always trying to improve both my technical and professional skills. Whether it be improving my technical interview skills through CodePath’s fellowship, learning more about utilizing large language models from my intel student ambassador workshops or diving deeper into machine learning by doing research with Professor Leilani Gilpin, I have actively looked for opportunities to improve my skills. Furthermore, I would regularly attend workshops at clubs both allow me to learn and get to know the people better. I believe this program will provide me a platform to gain insight from experienced individuals allowing me to improve myself as a professional. Additionally, I believe in giving back to the community that helped me get to this place. During my first year, I was completely lost, not knowing if I even wanted to pursue this major. It was only until I joined clubs, I was able to better understand how to navigate the tech field through mentorship from upperclassmen and now I want to do the same for my underclassmen. The main reason I became an Intel student ambassador was the opportunity to host workshops allowing students to learn more about modern technologies such as text-to-image generators and large language models through support from Intel. Your program will allow me to learn the needed skills to allow me to spread my knowledge to my peers like how my upperclassmen did to me. Overall, I believe that I am a great candidate for your program and I am eager to learn more about it."
Do you believe you can get into a top company?,"I believe I will be able to achieve an opportunity at a tier 1 company. Despite the less than ideal job market, I know I can land a role at a tier 1 company. As many people have said, the internship hunt is just a numbers game, at some point I will get a chance to showcase myself and all I need to just prepare for that moment. So for now, I will keep searching for opportunities to improve my skills whether it be leetcode or working on a research project while networking with recruiters and applying for jobs."
Why do you believe you fit our LLM role at tenXclinical?,"I am excited to apply for the internship position at tenXclinical as I am passionate about building AI-powered tools to help in healthcare. I am particularly drawn to your innovative use of LLM technologies and the opportunity to both contribute and learn from this project. I have hands-on experience with LLMs and have fine-tuned models such as Llama2 and mistral. Additionally, I have plenty of experience working with RAG models using Langchain and pinecone has my vector database. Additionally, I have some experience using AWS and am currently pursuing the Cloud Practitioner certificate. I am eager to bring my skills and enthusiasm to tenXclinical and look forward to learning more about what you do."
Tell me about a time when you were showed tenacity,"During my winter break, I reflected on why I couldn’t land any roles, and after further research, I realized I was not doing enough outside of classes. So, I decided to challenge myself. Firstly, in my research lab, I co-led the accident explainability project, where we conducted explanatory data analysis on autonomous vehicle accidents. We faced many obstacles, specifically the lack of data and incomplete datasets, which needed a lot of preprocessing needed for a good analysis. Despite these challenges, we completed the project and are now in the process of writing a paper on our findings. Further, I participated in the Google Developer Solutions challenge and the Santa Cruz AI competition. For the former, I created an outfit generator app, while for the latter, I developed a car classifier app that won 4th place. In these projects, I worked with many underclassmen who were new to creating projects so I took a leadership role to ensure they had a chance to learn while being able to contribute to the project. I did all this while grading for my machine learning class and managing my coursework. Initially, I doubted my ability to manage this workload, as I had never undertaken so many projects simultaneously. Additionally, I struggled with focusing. However, I began planning my weeks and breaking down tasks into manageable daily goals. This approach improved my time management and it helped me to stay focused as I had an end goal to meet every day. However, it was still a tough journey, but I was able to learn a lot from my projects and it was much more enjoyable than just cramming 5 classes in one quarter."
Describe a time when you had to work with a difficult team member. What actions did you take to resolve the situation to encourage the team's ongoing progress?,"During my google solution challenge, I was working with a team of four on a mobile app that would generate an outfit based on the weather. It was going well in the beginning, but during week 3, one of our group members started making little progress on his tasks. This led to me and another team member having to cover his tasks leading to a little animosity in the group. So I decided to talk to him about what was going on. After the talk, I realized he was struggling in a class I had already taken. I decided to take some time and tutor him in that class. This led to him doing well in his finals and he was able to start contributing more to the project. Overall, we ended up with a solid project and had a great learning experience together.
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Describe an activity in which you took a leadership role. How did you lead and what did you do to overcome the challenges of leadership?,"During my software engineering class, we were tasked to develop a project in a group following scrum practices. We decided to create a mobile poker app, but our group had no experience working with the frontend. I decided to volunteer to lead the frontend team, spending a lot of time learning both react and react native. Additionally, I would lead the standup meetings to ensure the backend and frontend team knew what the other team was doing. Furthermore, I would lead code reviews when we implemented a big functionality to ensure we didn’t end up with big technical debt. This led to us finishing our minimal viable product in 7 weeks and getting praise from both the professor and the TAs which led us to get an A for the class. "
What are you passionate about,"I am passionate about self-improvement and learning. One example of this is in a hobby I recently picked up, badminton. I could barely hold a rally against my friends, regularly gassing out and missing the birdie. However, through relentless practice, seeking feedback from other people, and improving my cardio, I started being able to keep up with them. A month later, I was able to narrowly win against them for the first time surprising many of them. Similarly, my journey in programming mirrors this journey. In the beginning, I was stuck in tutorial hell where I struggled to apply my skills to real projects. Instead of giving up, I sought advice from forums and discord servers allowing me to learn good coding practices while getting advice on what tools are best fit for my case. Whether it be programming, sports, or working out, I always strive to improve myself. This mentality allowed me to overcome many struggles and obstacles in life and make me who I am today."
What skill are you looking to develop with this internship?,"For this internship, I want to improve my skills in backend development and machine learning engineering. I want to get hands-on experience in designing, building, and maintaining backend systems. This includes improving my knowledge of server-side communication, database management, and API development. Additionally, I aim to refine my machine learning engineering skills by working on end-to-end ML pipelines, from processing the data and training accurate models to finally deploying it on the cloud. Furthermore, I look forward to collaborating with a team of experienced engineers, improving my ability to work using agile methodologies, communicating, and contributing to high-impact projects. Overall, I believe this internship would be a great opportunity to improve my technical and soft skills at an industry level."
What excites me about Palantir?,"What excites me about Palantir's offerings is to be able to work on high-impact projects. With the rise of AI, it has been integrated into many things, including US defense. With rising tensions around the globe, it is important for the US to have the best advancements to ensure our country can lead the world to world peace and I would love to contribute this through your projects. I believe I am a hard worker and would fit in with our company. "
Something not on my resume?,"One thing I am really proud of is my going from JV in swim to varsity from my first year to 2nd year. During, my first year I was pretty slow causing me not to place last in many races. However, I wanted to change that and a upperclassmen introduced me to a swim club called Alameda Gators. Through this program, I was able to swim year-round while my teammates didn't. The commute to the club was 1.5 hours using public transportation. Despite that, I endured the long commute using that time to study while giving my all during practice. As a result, I shattered many of my personal best times and led to a varsity spot. I am really proud of it and it is really unfortunate that covid happened."
Why do you want to work for belvedere trading?,"I want to work for Belvedere Trading because it aligns with both my interests in tech and the financial market. The prospect of working and learning about Belvedere's latest technology which is deployed to solve some of the hardest problems excites me. Furthermore, working alongside many of your talented engineers and traders would be amazing. Through experience from building applications from startups and research at my lab, I have a strong background in developing ML pipelines and backend systems while still understanding the needs of front-end engineers. In summary, I believe my experiences and skills make me a great fit for your software engineer intern program."
What excites you about working for Gecko?,"Coming into computer science, my main interests were just coding and playing video games. However, as time passed, the thing that kept my interest in this major was the chance to meet amazing people and learn about the exciting projects they were working on. This is the reason I want to work for Gecko Robotics. The innovative robots you are working on, combined with the opportunity to work and learn with some amazing people aligns with what I value most for my career. I am excited about being able to work on high-impact projects and experience what is like to work in a robotics organization. "
What are you interested in mongoDb,"I am interested in MongoDB because it provides the opportunity to be able to work on many of your cutting-edge products. As shown by its high user count, MongoDB is one of the best database platforms for both individuals and enterprises to use. I am particularly interested in working on projects related to vector search because I have experience and knowledge of it from my work with RAG. Additionally, the benefits and mentorship opportunities are a great addition. I believe I am a great candidate for your application and I am eager to hear more about this role."
Why do you want to work at MISO,"I want to work at MISO because of the opportunity to be able to work on high-impact environmental projects. I have always been intrigued by how we could create solutions to help fight climate change. From data analysis to working with my local city, I had my fair share of experiences in working with solutions around climate change and I believe your company can provide me with a great experience for both impact and growth as a person and developer. I believe this role fits me well is because I have a lot of experience working with data, from data analysis on tabular data and using state-of-the-art ML models with unstructured data. I am great working with a team especially in the planning department. I am eager to hear back from you and hope you have a great day."
What interest you about duolingo?,"The thing that interests me in Duolingo is being able to work for a company that puts their customers over everything. Duolingo provides high-quality material for people to learn new languages without having any paywall. If a company their customers this way, I can only imagine how well you treat your employees. Because of these benefits, I want to get an opportunity to be able to use my technical skills to help push out high-quality content to everyone. I am eager to hear back from you and hope you have a great day."
Why do u want this role at Riot?,"I want to pursue this role professionally because I have the skills needed for this role. I have a good amount of experience designing, developing, and deploying backend architecture with Docker and AWS. I believe through this role, I can enhance my knowledge greatly by working alongside your amazing engineers. Lastly, I know I will be a great fit for your team if given the chance so I hope you can consider me for my application."
What do you look for in our internship at bill?,"The most important thing in an internship is the opportunity to grow as a backend engineer through hands-on experience and mentorship from your engineers and project managers. I want to be challenged while not feeling pressured to get everything right. Ultimately, I want an enjoyable experience where I can build meaningful personal connections with my peers and mentors."
Tell me about yourself and why you are interested in our internship at ClickTime,"I am excited to apply for the software engineer internship at ClickTime. With experience in backend and full-stack development, I am well-equipped to contribute to your fast-paced, iterative development process. At Nucleo, I led the backend team of 4 interns to design and develop a full-stack application in a short time frame. Furthermore, I also show I can work well independently from my experience at mergen and AIEA lab where I was able to develop the foundation of the backend application with just instructions. My familiarity with SQL databases and web technologies like JavaScript and React, coupled with my experience working in team environments, positions me to excel at ClickTime, where I can contribute to architecture design, development, and testing. I am eager to bring my skills to your company and am excited to hear more about this role."
Please explain how your academic and/or professional experience prepares you for this internship program. Please include an explanation of your interest in the areas of innovation,"My academic and professional experiences have well prepared me for this internship. I have taken most of the AI courses at UCSC, which led to my first role at Professor Gilpin’s AIEA lab. There, I worked as a data scientist, gathering, processing, and analyzing data on autonomous vehicle accidents Later, I transitioned to working on optimizing large language models using Retrieval augmented generation. This experience helped me land a role with Nucleo Research where I led of team of interns to develop an application that allows users to create a custom chatbot by connecting their files. These roles have deepened my passion for data and AI where innovations happen daily. I enjoy learning about these discoveries and finding ways I can use them to optimize performance in my applications. Overall, I am eager to be apart of your program and hope you will consider my application."
Biggest challenges you overcome,"One of the biggest challenges I overcame was the tough job market. Despite sending around 500 applications and cold emailing for referrals, I only got a handful of interviews that led nowhere. It was demotivating, but it forced me to adjust my strategy. I started focusing on honing specific skills allowing recruiters to identify my specialty. Furthermore, I attended more conferences and career fairs to expand my network and learn about products through workshops. To further improve, I rigorously practiced interviewing and solving leetcode problems. This combination of grit and better strategy led to me landing my first intern role at a startup in late August. Though the journey was challenging, it taught me many valuable lessons on navigating through a tough job market."