Have you ever noticed that whenever you visit an online shopping website, you are bombarded with recommended or suggested items to buy? You can typically find them in the margins of the computer screen. For example, Amazon is well known for recommending its users items that are very close to those which they would like to buy in the future. How does this work? Machine learning is the ability of a computer to learn without being explicitly programmed. Essentially, computers are helping us create programs, not just running them. I find machine learning to be fascinating because it is so general. You can learn one set of techniques, and apply it to a large set of very different problems successfully with very little domain-specific knowledge. For example, if a facial recognition researcher wanted to be able to determine whether a person is a male or female based solely on an image of their face, they would spend hundreds, maybe even thousands, of hours developing very complex algorithms to perform this task. However, today someone skilled in machine learning, but not facial image processing, can create algorithms that perform much better and faster than any non-machine learning algorithm. You can do amazing things involved in literally any field of human knowledge and activities with machine learning. Software is created for math, physics, economics, music, video editing, social media, etc. Aside from that, it is challenging intellectually. It makes you think about very abstract concepts and then it equips you with the tools you need to address, represent, or even solve these concepts. It is essentially magic. All I have to do is code in some language and to a tiny degree I am able to alter or manipulate the world around me, My thoughts and ideas can be converted into real-world phenomena, giving me control over many of the objects around me and making them more powerful and useful. As an Economics and Computer Science double major, I am constantly thinking about ways to combat scarcity. We have unlimited wants, but a finite amount of resources. Therefore, how can we efficiently allocate resources to everyone who first needs it, and then wants it? I believe that machine learning could hold the key to reducing an issue such as world hunger. It can be used to better optimize how we grow and distribute food by using machine learning algorithms to improve crop yield and streamline the shipping and handling process. With more food produced and better ways of distributing, we can significantly reduce or even end world hunger in the future. I am a big advocate of using machine learning to better society. I would love to work for a company like Google in its division: AI for Social Good. On a lighter note, I would also love to be involved in predictive machine learning. Imagine a time when I go to pick up my kids from school and there is a song playing inside my car and when my kids enter, my car knows that, and the music is changed according to their taste. That's what machine learning will become tomorrow and I want to be a part of that!

Two Beats in Sync is a piece that I wrote in a time of massive confusion in my life. I was falling in love with my best friend, but I was also struggling to come to terms with my sexuality. We knew we wanted to be together so we took a chance, but alas, society's rules and the rules of our respective cultures would not allow us to be together. This piece is a brain dump of what I felt at that time.

Music is arguably the greatest creation of mankind. In many ways, it is the fabric of our lives and the definition of society. Music is the source of my most profound emotions. At each and every milestone, celebration, and challenge in my life, music has been an integral factor. In fact, it has been so much more than a mere factor. Music has always been, and remains, my very oxygen, the sustenance which carries me, the elixir of my soul. "Love It If We Made It" by The 1975 is a song that I hold very near to my heart. It suggests you can always find a way to keep going, even when you are drowning in the planet’s collective misery. The song reflects on and critiques current issues plaguing society, which younger generations have had no choice but to inherit from their predecessors. It offers a blend of 80s funk, electro-pop, ethereal choral parts, and heavy drum beats. Much of the lyrics are essentially shouted rather than sung. This rapid-fire shouting is a stylistic choice but also adds rawness and a grunge edge that helps the track present itself as a more modern spin on the American protest song. "Love It If We Made It" has lyrics that paint the times we are living in extremely well. One of the issues the song touches on is the rise of miscommunication and misinformation, a subject that is as prevalent as ever amidst the age of COVID-19. The idea that we now have access to more accurate information than ever but it has not resulted in people being more informed. We curate our own newsfeed to reflect sources we deem credible, but credible is different to everyone. The song also speaks on police brutality, the fetishization of black culture, and private prisons. The comments on melanin refer to the emergence of the commodification of black culture and skin in beauty and fashion trends. It highlights the fact that we live in a society that is so quick to consume black culture, yet just as quick to vilify and kill its originators. "Love It If We Made It", from the first listen is easy to fall in love with. Its controversial and bleak lyrics offer social commentary that is packaged with a hopeful title and a seemingly happy and upbeat backtrack. This song is special to me because it provides excellent original thought-provoking, and engaging lyrics that tell an honest narrative; one that perfectly encapsulates my anger for today and hope for a better tomorrow.