Pulkit Bhasin

What are your year, your pronouns major and your hometown?

I am currently a junior majoring in Computer Science. My pronouns are the he-series. I was born in California, but I completed middle school and high school in New Delhi, India. Now, I'm based in the Bay Area.

What are your past and current committees?

I did CX my first semester, then RP, then DC, then Web Dev.

Why and how did you choose your major?

What are some of your favorite TV shows?

I like Parks and Recreation. I like Bojack Horseman quite a bit. I know a lot of people stop after season one because they don't like it that much, but a lot of people say that they feel that season two is where it really picks up. I watched the entire show. I feel like a lot of people are expecting something more lighthearted and less invested than it actually is. It's pretty deep because you see an animated horse, and you don't expect the profound stuff it talks about.

What are some of your professional experiences, and what are your interests? Why are you interested in those?

I'm still figuring out what niche I want to pursue within computer science. But I think one that I've been really interested in is machine learning and artificial intelligence. Again, it's because of the applications that it has in different domains, using data to find more objectivity and transparency in different areas. Regarding professional experience, during my freshman year summer, I was a research intern within this lab, where I had to basically implement a CNN [neural network] to detect commercial vehicles on the road within New York. So we had open source images from New York camp street cameras and had to detect the number of commercial vehicles. The PhD student was working on calculating stuff like the last mile delivery problem, and he needed this information. So that was really interesting because as much as working with raw data is frustrating, and really, really annoying, the end results were pretty cool. Then, I interned at Google, where although my work wasn't directly ML related, I was in the augmented reality team. So I was sort of working on deploying a machine learning algorithm. Again, my work was more like development, then integrating that with a back end with their models. When I saw the impact that their models had, through my creation, I really found it fascinating because I enjoyed it. I'm currently also a research assistant within Haas, where we are basically working on evaluating whether providing training on negotiation and MBA training to students in Uganda has an effect on the negotiation power using experiments. So my job is to use NLP transcripts and a Naive Bayes model to evaluate transcripts and see whether there's a difference between the control group and treatment group. So again, it’s introducing objectivity to some extent because negotiation seems pretty subjective. But to be able to provide some quantitative information is pretty cool.

How have you used statistics in your professional experience?

My internship time and my internship didn't involve that much statistics because I was more on the deployment side. But in my current research, for example, statistics is pretty important. Since, in my case, you have a transcript. There are so many words and so many things. But the only way you can really provide any sort of quantitative information regarding it is using statistics. So statistics play such a huge and key role in being able to provide a lot more information about data that might seem vast and incomprehensible otherwise, and that's really cool.

How did you find out about SAAS, and why did you join?

I really loved the CX committee when I first saw it because when it came to work, I knew I was interested in things like data and how to work with data, but I didn't have the technical knowledge. So even though data consulting really piqued my interest, I didn't feel confident going to do consulting immediately because I didn't have the technical background. That's what I love about SAAS, that it has the perfect stepping stones to learn and reach that stage where you can have larger scale impact because you can go into CX first and then maybe IA for a personal and small scale project and then DC for larger scale projects. That professional growth is what really appealed to me when I first joined.

What is your favorite committee that you've been in?

When I came, I thought it might be DC, but actually my favorite committee was RP because I really loved my project, and also because I was a director for one semester. I really enjoyed that.

What was your favorite SAAS semester?

I actually really enjoyed CS 170, and maybe CS 189 right now. It was really hard for me. At the time, it was really annoying. Some homeworks really made me want to cry, but it was rewarding. The satisfaction in the way it helped me improve my logical thinking and intuition was external. It's like CS 189 because I'm learning something that I enjoy. I'm enjoying my professors so far.