Share your journey to NKU. Why did you choose to attend NKU?
In short – I chose to attend NKU because of the trifecta of great programs, great location, and affordability. Towards the end of high school when I started seriously looking at colleges, I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of options. To try to simply things a little, I set up a series of tours with local Universities to try to better understand their programs, get a feel for campus, and see what might be the best fit. Even from these early on tours, NKU stood out to me as a college that had an amazing value proposition and really valued individual students. My very first tour at NKU, I got to see campus, and even got to speak with professors from a few programs before I was even enrolled! This had a huge impact on me, and it meant a lot that professors would be willing to speak to me before I was even officially a student. Whereas other Universities occasionally felt cold and impersonal, like I was one of a million students, NKU made me feel like I was valued. On top of this – buildings like Griffin Hall (home of the College of Informatics) were stunning, and I’d be lying to say it didn’t feel cool to think about working in such a state-of-the-art building. As we got to talking more, I really started to see the value that NKU brought to the table. First was the quality of programs. I was interested in the intersection of Statistics and Computer Science, and it blew my mind to hear that NKU had a specialized program just for this. At the time, NKU was one of a few schools to offer an undergrad degree in Data Science, which was exactly what I was looking for! NKU, and the College of Informatics in general, focuses on having interesting, high impact programs that fit exactly the needs of businesses in the area, so it was exciting to hear NKU had a program that would prepare me so well for what I wanted to do. The next thing that hit me was affordability. NKU offers great scholarships and has a really competitive tuition rate. In a world where college is more expensive than ever, it felt to me like NKU understood the situation and did everything it could to help students afford college. If you click around the NKU website you’ll see a lot about accessibility and meeting the needs of the region, and I can personally attest that NKU keeps the student front of mind. Lastly was location. I am a Cincinnati native and grew up right in Anderson Township. While I loved the idea of living on campus no matter where I went, I also loved the idea of being relatively close to home, especially since I wanted to work in Cincinnati after college as well. Going to NKU meant I could still live on campus, make friends, and engage in the on-campus community, but also drive home when I wanted and steal a free meal from my parents back in Anderson! Even better, going to NKU meant I could interview and intern with businesses in the region, which is how I ended up working for 84.51 in downtown Cincinnati. Overall – NKU felt like the perfect package for me. A great program at a great price in a great region, with faculty and staff that cared about my success. I started to recognize that during those early tours and trips to campus, and looking back now I can see it even clearer that NKU truly has their student’s best interests at heart.
Favorite NKU memory
It’s hard to choose a single moment to sum up NKU for me, but I can certainly try! Of course I loved the classes, all of the research opportunities I had, and how NKU prepared me to enter the workforce, but often my fondest memories are the little things that happen in between that show the community that NKU has and how much the staff and faculty care. For example, my senior year, I helped to lead the College of Informatics Ambassadors. We had a weekly meeting for all of our members, and beforehand we would mull around and make small talk before the meeting began. I started to get into the habit of showcasing my (awful) artistic skills by using Microsoft Paint to try to draw a part of campus every week. One week, I decided to draw the Dean of the College of Informatics, Dean Kirby, which got some laughs from the other students and our faculty mentors. Somehow, this drawing made its way to Dean Kirby’s desk, and at the end of my last semester I was given a magnet with my drawing on that I still hold onto this day, and it still displays prominently at my desk at 84.51! This is really to show the strength of the communities at NKU. Every part of campus I got to interact with at NKU turned into another home for me. Some days it was the College of Informatics, others it was the Math/Stats department or the Honors College, but each had wonderful faculty and staff who weren’t just there to tick checkboxes, but to interact with students and enrich their college experiences. For every story like the one above I have a dozen more where NKU faculty and staff went above and beyond to make an impact with me, and I think back fondly on all of them!
Experiential Learning/Involvement in college
Experiential learning and getting involved on campus were what really made NKU for me. NKU is special because of the wealth of opportunities it has for students to get involved and grow while also getting a degree! In terms of experiential learning, I did several research projects and internships while at NKU. The summer after my very first year at NKU, I had the opportunity to do a UR-STEM project, which was an 8-week paid research opportunity to work with Mathematics and Statistics faculty and was the first chance I had to work with R, an extremely popular programming language for data science. By the end of this project, I had valuable programming skills that set me apart when I went to interview for internships, and had a research poster I was able to present at several places during my sophomore year. My sophomore year, I was lucky enough to participate in a research-based class again within Mathematics and Statistics, where we, in small groups, partnered with organizations in the Cincinnati area to do work for them and gain further hands-on experience. My group partnered with Children’s Hospital, where we helped to determine the risk factors that would lead to Acute Kidney Injury in children developing into chronic kidney disease, which is often fatal. This further solidified my programming knowledge, was a fascinating project, and taught me amazing soft skills that would aid me in my career. My senior year, I completed my Honors Capstone working with the Dean of the College of Informatics, Kevin Kirby. This was a yearlong project that felt like the culmination of my degree, where we did exciting and challenging research in the field of deep learning. Not only was the project interesting, and I learned many technical skills along the way, the idea that I could even do research with a college Dean is such a unique element of NKU that sets it apart. Our faculty are so available and willing to work with students, which opened the door for the research opportunities I listed above and several others. NKU really helped to prepare me as well to do internships, which were the most impactful to my career at the end of the day. Thanks to the awesome research I was able to do, I found myself being competitive when it came to interview for internships, and I was able to land an internship at my dream company, 84.51 (the data people for Kroger), in my sophomore year. This meant I was able to spend two summers working with 84.51, learning even more technical skills along the way, and which pipelined into me now working for 84.51 today as a Data Scientist! In terms of getting involved on campus, there are so many wonderful options, whether you’re looking for leadership-type organizations or just something fun to do. I participated in a great deal of organizations, including Presidential Ambassadors (the campus tour guides), College of Informatics Ambassadors, STEM Ambassadors, and the Honors Student Association. These organizations really helped me to develop leadership skills and presentation skills, which really set me apart when it came time to interview for jobs. In addition, they built up communities on campus that made NKU feel like home, as I had made friends along the way. There’s also a lot of work opportunities on campus that can make it so you’re able to spend some more time on campus and get valuable experience while paying for college along the way. While I was at NKU, I worked a few jobs including being a student worker for the Vice Provost, being a TA for a Statistics class and a Computer Science class, tutoring in our Calculus lab, and doing paid research with faculty in the back part of my degree. The great part about everything I listed there is that all of these provided really amazing development for me that helped make me a stronger candidate for jobs, but also were paid and made the financials of college easier to navigate! To conclude, there really are an incredible diversity of things to be involved with at NKU, and these experiences are what made my college experience special. NKU offers great coursework, but all the stories I think back fondly involve the things that happened outside of the classroom. All this stems again from how involved and dedicated our faculty are, where often an email to a professor just asking, “hey, do you have any research opportunities?” could turn into a fulfilling multi-semester research project. I truly believe NKU has a stronger dedication to experiential learning and on-campus activities than any other college, and it’s my favorite thing about the University.
Advice for future students
My advice for future students is always just to be present, whether that’s in coursework or just spending time on campus! All the best opportunities for me happened I made connections with other students and faculty and heard through the grapevine about what was happening on campus! Whether it was a leadership organization recruitment event, a faculty needing students to help with research, or even something fun like a pizza dinner at Griffin Hall, just spending time on campus and connecting with others allowed me to immerse myself at NKU and find some amazing opportunities. At the same time, I know many NKU students work part or full time or have family obligations that keep them from campus, and I think my message there would be to make the most of the time you do have and seek opportunities that allow you to spend more time on campus when possible. There are a wealth of opportunities for student work on campus that can also further your academic pursuits, between being a TA, doing paid research, etc. and these opportunities also allow you to spend more time on campus, which is a huge win-win!
Tell us about your current role and what you do.
I am a Data Scientist working for 84.51 in downtown Cincinnati! We are the data folks for Kroger, helping Kroger to make data-driven decisions to help steer their business. Specifically, I work in pricing, which is a really interesting space to work on in the current economic environment. More or less, my job involves a lot of programming, and a lot of thinking of the best ways to help communicate the complex analyses we do at 84.51. While most people think that coming up with cool Machine Learning or AI algorithms is the hard part of a job, I think the challenging part is getting all stakeholders aligned on the requirements, constraints, etc of the analysis you are doing. Thus, an equal amount of my job is thinking about data visualization and data communication and how we can best present things in a way that makes sense to everyone!
Anything else you want to share
NKU is a phenomenal school, and I enjoyed it enough that I will be returning in the Fall to pursue a Master’s in Integrative Studies at NKU! My Masters will be combining Computer Science and Communication, which are both College of Informatics programs, and I can’t wait to come back.
