Computer Science Research Intern in Machine Learning

Win

Education: PhD, Computer Science, 2009

Win has spent more than a few years in college and graduate school. Interested in computer science and artificial intelligence, he always figured he’d become a professor one day. But after deciding to look into jobs outside of academe, he stumbled upon an internship listing for the National Security Agency. The coolness factor of working on classified projects for the government was too much to ignore, and he decided to apply.
 
We know you have to keep the details of your internship a secret, but can you tell us anything about what you worked on?  I spent my internship exploring machine learning problems, which mostly included trying experiments and seeing what the results of those experiments were. I also did a lot of writing and presentation of my ideas.

Machine learning? It’s a field within artificial intelligence. The idea is to teach a computer to look at a large amount of data and learn from it. For example, you might be interested in the sales of a particular item at Wal-Mart, in relation to something that seems strange—let’s say between the weather outside and diaper sales. The computer could then figure out whether there was any kind of correlation, if maybe Wal-Mart would need to stock up on diapers if the forecast called for rain. Essentially, it would be dealing with things a human might be able to figure out, but with a scale of data that wouldn’t be easy to handle.

What surprised you most when you first started? The NSA is not scary! For some reason, I had this idea that the people here would be very strict and maybe mean. But they’re very friendly and helpful. It’s just like any other place you could work.

Looking back on the experience, has it meet your expectations? It’s better than I expected—it’s been a really tremendous experience. I learned a lot, and I’ve gotten to work on projects that are meaningful and very exciting.

Is there anything you did during the internship that you’re particularly proud of? Generally, I felt like I was able to meet the task at hand, and I’m really proud of that. I was a little concerned that, because there were so many bright and brilliant people here, I wouldn’t be able to contribute. But I have, and that’s been wonderful.

Describe the experience in three words:  challenging, exciting, fun.

Before we let you go, are there any secrets you can share? Well, without speaking specifically, I can say our projects are really cool. Unfortunately, we can’t describe to people much about what we do, but once you’re on the inside here, you’ll see it’s amazing.