TA Spotlight: Emma Price
Emma Price is a TA for CS 6750: Human-Computer Interaction. Keep reading to learn more about Emma!
What do you do professionally?
I am a Senior Machine Learning engineer for Lockheed Martin. My team works on developing ML applications that empower employees to grow and gain exposure to new opportunities within the company by leveraging machine learning and graph database technology.
Why do you TA for OMSCS?
I TA because I enjoy mentoring others and find human-computer interaction fascinating. I firmly believe that everyone should learn about computer science. It is applicable to anything and everything, but is only effective through good design. The students in OMSCS are fantastic and I learn so much from each assignment I review.
What is your advice for future OMSCS students?
OMSCS is difficult. The strain/stress it adds to life, on top of a full work week, is significant. My best advice would be to intentionally carve out time for yourself each week to rest/regroup and to pace yourself.
At the start of each semester, I try to front load all of the lectures (especially during the first week when there is no assignment due). I focus on taking notes and trying to get through as many lectures as possible. Then, when an assignment is due I take a second pass through the relevant lectures to the assignment and use that time to further improve my notes and understanding. This process helps me understand how a given assignment fits into the surrounding material, and gives me multiple iterations to learn the material.
What hobby or activity are you looking forward to getting back to once you're done with OMSCS?
I am looking forward to having my nights and weekends more open to pursue personal projects. I would like to spend more time working with transformers and learning how to better implement reinforcement learning for various applications.
I am also looking forward to hiking more. I moved to Colorado two years ago and hiked my first 14er (a mountain peak that is greater than 14,000 ft above sea level) last summer. I would really like to hike more 14ers and eventually train my dog to hike them with me. He loves the mountains and it would be really cool to share those moments with him.