Making the Most of Uni with Nick Lambourne

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hi there and welcome to the router, the official podcast of the youth in computing society, where we explore the human side of tech. I'm your host, Matt and I hope you've been having a wonderful summer break today. We'll be having a chat with Nick Lambourne, former president of UK UCS, and currently interning at Atlassian as a site, reliability engineer. He's done pretty much everything you can do during his time at university. And he's here to share his advice for making the most out of your university experience too.

Speaker 2: 0:39

[inaudible]

Speaker 1: 0:40

All right. Welcome to the rouser neck.

Speaker 3: 0:43

Hi, thanks for having me. Um, it's a pleasure to be here

Speaker 1: 0:46

Lastly, for the rest of the audience. Uh, could you introduce yourself and, uh, your history?

Speaker 3: 0:52

Yeah. Um, so, uh, some people who have been around a while might know me, um, I was president of ETCs, uh, in 2019. Um, and before that I was sort of around the periphery. Um, and then last year I stuck around to help out the what's now the old committee, uh, with, uh, with running things. Um, so if you've been to some of the ETCs talks, they've organized, uh, a lot of those, uh, my experience, uh, with the university, uh, is a bit different than most I've been at Yuku. Um, and having just left, uh, last week, uh, I I've been at IQ for 10 years, which means that, uh, I've, I've seen a lot, I've missed out on a lot of opportunities, but I've been able to take advantage of a lot of others. Um, and yet in that time I've studied, uh, psychology and finance to begin with. Cause I really didn't know what I wanted to do, uh, after school. And then, uh, when I finally found out what it was that I wanted to spend my life working on computer science, uh, and that's sort of how I, uh, ended up, uh, involved in uqc. Yes.

Speaker 1: 2:11

W what was the thing that, that, I guess after like four, four or five years of studying psychology and finance, what was the thing that made you change, change your mind and go into computing in general? Is that like a catalyst for that?

Speaker 3: 2:29

It was, yeah, so I, um, I've taken, I've sort of gotten a bit bored. I was bored a lot during those, those years in, in, uh, in finance and in psychology. Um, so I did a lot of stuff on the side. Um, I worked a fair bit, um, mostly sort of customer service jobs, but then moved into a more sort of retail and, uh, sorry, uh, more, uh, substantive jobs, like, uh, I did a bit of lobbying. I worked as a technical advisor, um, but the thing that sort of solidified this, this idea that I'd had, um, of sort of being interested in computer science, um, was, uh, taking this one particular online course, CS 50, uh, Harvard, uh, the introduction to computer science, um, put through Harvard and taught by this amazing, like crazy passionate, uh, lecturer, uh, Nick, David Malin, and taking that course was sort of, I took that course six months before I was due to finish, uh, my, uh, first sort of double degree there. And I knew at that time that I needed to go and do this instead. Um, this is, this got me excited about the prospect of work, uh, or the prospect of study even, um, in a way that I hadn't been before. So, uh, that, that was really the catalyst and doing that, and then getting more into Python and then starting to use Python in my work, um, uh, as a technical advisor and, and, uh, as, uh, as the manager of a network of led billboards, um, I set up this, uh, Django based application to help me do my job. Um, and it was then that I could, like, I could really see the true, I don't know that the true power of what I could learn in computer science.

Speaker 1: 4:28

And with that experience, I guess there's, there's, there's degrees, there's past degrees. Do you find yourself ever using things from those nowadays, or are there any experiences that you've gathered from those that time that you still

Speaker 3: 4:45

It's the only other tangential? Um, of course I wish that I had discovered computer science. I was kind of, I was initially put off, um, because I didn't want to, I did like computers, I enjoyed building computers and playing around with them as a child, but I didn't, I was worried when I was at school, but doing that, uh, for work would sort of ruin the fun. Um, so obviously it was a long time before I realized my mistake there and I do wish I had of gone straight into computer science or computer science and math straight out of school, but I mean, there have been parts of it. It's it's yeah. The application is only ever tangential it's, uh, little things, um, like being familiar with the accounting terminology or, um, things like, uh, a bit of the organizational psychology stuff that I did, um, helped when I was working with people on the QCs committee in particular, um, that I guess it did help, but probably weren't with the five years that it took to get there.

Speaker 1: 5:54

I guess, tell me a bit more about your QCs, uh, the committee, I guess you say you started, um, university journey. When did you get involved with you?

Speaker 3: 6:05

Yes, first. So I, uh, I'd done, uh, obviously I'd done this course. Um, I started doing a bit of web programming, um, and I was looking for ways to get involved because I knew that the way that I'd gone about my first degree or first double degree, uh wasn't that, that wasn't the way to do university. I've been there long enough and I'd missed out on enough opportunities that I knew that I had to do something different. So even before I, uh, started in what initially was software engineering, um, in 2016, uh, sort of in the later part of 2015, I started to, uh, look for ways to get more involved. And I came across the computing society and it was in a very different state to what it is now. Uh, my first ever hit UCS event was actually their AGM in that year. And I went along and the entire event was, uh, well, the vast majority of the event was them trying to find 30 people to sign the attendance form, to keep the club going, uh, which when you look at UGCs now is kind of hard to imagine. Um, I mean, there's always that fear, uh, that you're not going to have enough people, but it hasn't been a, a real risk for, for many, many years. Um, so that, that was my, my first engagement. And then after that, it was, uh, into 2016, it was attending the events. Uh, they weren't quite as frequent back then, but, uh, the vibe was there. And I guess I, I kind of felt like I, uh, had found my people if that makes sense. Um, which, uh, in, in contrast to finance and psychology, like, I, I just couldn't say, like, I, I certainly couldn't tell you now, but I even would have been struggling to tell you them a single person who I had studied with, um, apart from one person that I've known from high school, um, in those, in those previous two degrees. But yeah, I got more involved. Um, I got, uh, to know, uh, the president at the time, um, uh, Taylor Manderson and sort of got in with that circle, I guess. And I developed this, this network of people that would come to be my, my sort of core friendship group. And again, that wasn't something that I'd experienced, um, in either of the two previous, uh, degrees. And I guess the other thing was that I was, uh, I was in engineering. So I went through those first year engineering subjects and there's this cohort vibe, but develops around engineering because you are effectively traumatized, uh, into bonding with your fellow students by the courses. Um, they force you to do group work with people you've never met. They, uh, have a ridiculous amount of assessment. And if you're not relying on your fellow students, then, uh, it's unlikely that you're going to get through it all. So that, so there were a few sort of, uh, QCs people that I, that I, or people that would become new QCs, uh, members that I met through there as well. Um, and he had just developed this sort of network and that went on, and obviously there a few years there, um, where, uh, the, the, the clubs started to gain a bit of momentum, um, particularly under Taylor. Um, the society started to grow, obviously there's this, uh, external influence, uh, sort of building up technology and computer science, um, that meant that they were all of these students coming in. Um, and we had more numbers, more resources, and, uh, I got sort of got more involved, attended more events, um, got to know more people. And again, got in with this, this sort of core group who would become my, my close friends. And then, um, at the end of 2018, uh, Cameron was stepping down or graduating. Um, everybody was up from the existing committee was leaving and, uh, I had decided to run for president. Um, now that was after that felt quite radical to me because,

Speaker 4: 10:44

Because I hadn't, uh,

Speaker 3: 10:48

I hadn't held a committee position before I'd run, um, the year before I think, and been knocked back. Um, it, it is the, the, the voting process is a little bit of a popularity contest. We tried to obviously address that as the years have gone by, but, um, I hadn't served before. So I felt like it was a bit of a long shot running, running for president. Um, but I, I got voted in, um, by a margin of one vote. Um,

Speaker 4: 11:21

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 11:23

It was a very close thing. Um, and talking to people after, uh, I was sitting down with someone a couple of days ago and they're like, Oh, I could have been that deciding vote. Um, and, uh, but, and I was a bit worried because like that one vote margin and sort of, it wasn't contentious, but it was competitive. Um, but Jack, uh, who, uh, was the, the, the one vote shy, I ended up secretary and I was one, I was a bit worried about how that relationship was going to go if that was where it was starting. Uh, cause we didn't really know each other before then, but, um, I know the course of, uh, well, the time since, uh, that, that year in particular, when we worked so closely together to change the society and keep it going, um, we we've developed into really good friends. Um, and then we, we worked together as interns at Canva. Um, and it was just, I dunno, uh, it, it, it, it developed into what, what, what was effectively a competition developed into just this really, really good friendship. Um, and I wouldn't have been able to do make all of the progress that we made and do all of the things that we did that year without Jack's support

Speaker 1: 12:45

Out of the things you did, I guess, as president or with, with Jack a secretary, what is, what is the thing or things that you're most, most proud of achieving during that time? Is there anything that you can like point out and say, I did this, you know, that's something that feature UGCs, I guess iterations will be,

Speaker 3: 13:10

I mean, it's, it's a little bit complicated because it's, it's something that I'm both proud of. And I guess regret slightly, because we may have taken it a little bit too far, but turning what was sort of at most weekly, typically sort of biweekly, uh, events into at least two events a week, every week throughout the year, um, or at least throughout the semesters, um, meant that the students and the members got a lot more exposure to, uh, the talent, because I was effectively relying a lot of the time again on that, that network of friends that had developed in of QCs, most of whom had gone on and graduated and were working at places like Atlassian or, uh, Canva, Microsoft, those kinds of places. Um, but it does, it did put a lot of pressure on the rest of the committee and Jack and I in particular, um, in terms of organization. And I mean, we would just wrecked, uh, AF after a year of that, and then sort of, I guess, setting the bar so that the subsequent committee, I guess, that I was also on and organizing events for, um, felt like that was the standard that needed to be maintained. Um, and I guess the, the other downside of that is that I, I was much better at organizing the, the technical talks and I was at the social aspect. Um, and I can see now that what you QCs needs, particularly in the environment that we're in now, is that social aspect, um, more than they need to be learning about Coobernetti's or, uh, T mucks or whatever. Um, so I think the regret is, is the balance, um, in terms of workload and social versus technical. Um, but I am also proud that we were able to pull that much off because over the last two years, it's probably been nearly a hundred events. Um, by the time we tally them all up, um, that have been organized, um, by, by ETCs, which is just a massive increase. And I guess the other, the other big thing that I'm proud of is that that growth continued. Now, it's difficult to say, uh, how much of that growth is due to the influx of concise students, um, and how much is due to us doing a better job of advertising, but it was nice to finally, um, with the help of Madoff's, uh, last minute recruiting efforts to reach, uh, 500 paying members before, uh, handing it over, uh, in 2019.

Speaker 1: 16:07

Yeah, I think, I think the influx of members has been really good. And I think, I think with COVID, I guess it kind of affected the turnout, but even the online turnout was I think really good. And I think the consistency was good as well. Yeah,

Speaker 3: 16:26

That was, that was something that I struggled with a lot was dealing with the shift in turnout, because obviously as the person organizing events, I was relying on turnout as my, as my metric of how interested or how engaged people were and going from sort of a 40 person sort of median, uh, in like in-person to sort of struggling to get, uh, 20 people to watch, uh, when it was live online, um, was, it was, it was a little bit difficult to swallow, but then you'd see things like over the course of that week, a hundred more people would watch it. Um, and you'd feel, uh, slightly more redeemed now slightly more like the effort that you put in was worth it.

Speaker 1: 17:12

Hmm. Okay. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it, it, it, it, I think the, the way that since the events was strained and recorded, I guess that also affected the way that, you know, members would consume the talks and things like that, then that would be, I guess, less incentive to watch them on, uh, live, but because they'd know that they would always be recorded and available to watch whenever it was convenient. So, yeah, I guess, I guess the metrics it's kinda hard, but, um, yeah, I, I do still think that, uh, despite the circumstances it's been quite a good turnout of all of you out of all the streaming and all the recorded.

Speaker 3: 17:52

Yeah. Yeah. And it, it gave us the opportunity to go out and buy equipment so that we can stream and have this, this catalog of resources that we can link people to. Um, so even like, I'm hoping that we continue the tradition of things like, uh, having, uh, their main team ups talk, uh, at the beginning of each semester, the 2310 runs. But we, if, if we have a didn't, um, or for whatever reason, uh, like the recording failed or whatever, we have something to link back to. Um, and I think those resources will, uh, probably outlive the, any, any of our tenure, uh, with QCs.

Speaker 1: 18:38

So I guess it sounds like UCS has been a really big part of university experience. Um, yeah, I guess that wasn't it there, right? Like there was other stuff too. Um, yeah. Other experiences, where do you go into those?

Speaker 3: 18:56

Absolutely. Um, so obviously if you see us, we've been a massive part of my life for the past two and a half years. Um, and, and even before that, uh, but there have been out the aspects of university that I think people don't like, again, me going through my double degree, it sort of took four and a half years before I was even aware that these things were available. Um, and some of them weren't, uh, full finance or psychology, like computer science and technology, is, is someone special in that it has this focus on it right now, um, that may not always be the case, but that doesn't mean that there are opportunities, um, that you can take advantage of. So a couple of the big ones for me, um, where, uh, I'll go sort of shortest impact to longest, but the, uh, there's a space at[inaudible] called idea hub, and they describe it as this pre accelerator. Um, and it's a little bit cringy coming from a comp side perspective. Um, and a lot of this stuff will be familiar to anybody who's gone through sort of early, uh, years business education, but they offer this program where they will effectively talk you through how to take an idea, uh, and turn that into a business or a startup. And you go through this process and then you, you, once you've completed it, I think it's a one night, a week for five weeks or eight weeks. And you, you just go and you'll do some, uh, you participate in some cringy activities like design jams, and that kind of thing, but you, you will, you'll actually talk to entrepreneurs. And, uh, it's, it's a worthwhile experience, particularly if you don't have that business background, but, um, it's even more worthwhile because when you finish, you become eligible to go on these trips. Uh, now they're, they're called startup adventures and by go to different places. So there's, uh, Shanghai, Televiv San Francisco and Singapore, I believe were the ones that were available last time I checked. And what it is was effectively an all expenses paid trip to one of these commercial hubs where you were placed with a startup. Um, now those startups sort of varied from the couple of people in an office to a couple of a couple of hundred people, um, where you're starting to wonder if the word up still applies, but the, like this, this trip and the it's not just going there and working and getting, uh, like experience working in a company, particularly a small company where you're forced to wear many hats, um, is, is just incredible. But then you also, so, um, we were taken by the coordinator, um, Nimrod, uh, climate, uh, who I believe now runs NICU ventures, which is sort of the parent organization of this idea hub. And he, in addition to us doing our sort of eight to nine hour work days in the startups, I worked with a med tech startup called patched, um, with, uh, another one of your podcast guests. Um, whereas this is the CEO, um, and, uh, the, the work was interesting. I was doing, um, uh, training optimization for some machine learning for medical technology so that their goal is to detect sepsis and other illnesses, um, using vital sign data, um, and sort of, uh, recurrent neural nets defectively. Um,

Speaker 5: 22:56

And

Speaker 3: 22:58

So I go to do that work, but then Nimrod would take us out in the evenings. Um, and it would be, uh, we we'd go to like, uh, we work or we go to Uber and we'd have, there'd be networking events or fireside chats, or, um, we went to UC Berkeley, um, and sat down. And, uh, there was a fireside chat with someone, uh, from Sequoia capital. So getting this experience, getting this exposure to this world, um, was, was just phenomenal. Now I've I'm, I was at the time and remained a little bit skeptical of the startup space. Um, mostly because running a startup and being a part of a startup takes a lot out of you. Um, and I don't always have that to give with other obligations. Um, but it's just like, it was a phenomenal experience. Um, this was just after I'd been elected president of VPCs. So it made for some very long days, I do sort of eight or nine hours doing this, um, machine learning optimization, and then I'd go and do those networking events. And then I come back to the hostel where we were staying, um, and sort of sit up until two or three in the morning organizing ETCs talks for the coming semester, um, or, uh, market day or whatever. Um, and it was a lot of work, but it was incredibly worth it. And you, the people that you meet there, um, and work with will become part of this network that you develop and what I've discovered again, over and absurdly long time, uh, at university is that the network is the most important thing. Like the classes. Um, a lot of it, you can sort of take a leave, uh, but the network in particular is incredibly valuable and miss was one of the best, uh, experiences that I'd had for developing that network. Uh, I arrived back from that at like 6:00 AM and then, uh, had to go to market day, which thankfully, um, Jack had done a lot of the organizing for, uh, so it was, it was a very hectic beginning to the semester, but absolutely would recommend going and following up or trying to get into this program. Um, the other, the other big thing that, again, I think people don't realize is there, um, is research. Uh, you can get involved as an undergraduate and it's particularly valuable when you're an undergraduate and you don't like, you don't have very much experience and your, uh, you're ineligible for the vast majority of technical internships, because they're only looking for penultimate year students. So what you can do is you can do in the winter or summer break, um, instead of sitting at home and bemoaning your lack of eligibility for interns, you can as many, as many as many dude. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, yeah, it's disappointing. And I think it's a failing of the, of the industry that they're only willing to invest at that point where it's most likely they will get their, get their return. I mean, it makes sense financially, but it's, it's, I don't know. It seems a bit too much like the Netflix, we don't do interns at all kind of attitude. Um, but yeah, this, this research opportunity, so it's, it's in the, the winter break in the middle of the year or the summer at the end of the year, and it's sort of four or five weeks for winter. Um, or I think you negotiate it, but it's like eight to 12 for summer. Um, and they pay you the pay. It's certainly not internship pay or, uh, but it's, it's enough to get you by. Um, but it gives you access to, again, this network that's critically important. Um, so my, my first experience was this was applying. I was on exchange at the time. Um, so the application process was a bit based. You have to normally get interviewed by zoom or something. Um, and I had to organize a time that would work, but I ended up in a position where I was working with, uh, one of the Q, uh, ITW researchers, uh, on, they ha they have these, um, robots, uh, they call Opie. And what they are is effectively a, a couple of, uh, tablets, uh, secured to this wooden frame that gives it sort of a almost BEMAX kind of vibe, um, if BMX was flat for some reason, um, but you, you, you interact with it. And the, the idea is that, uh, you participate in these activities and these games on these tablets, uh, that will teach you language. Um, and they're sort of targeted at Australian indigenous languages, uh, where there aren't a lot of resources. So my job was to build something that turned, uh, linguistic transcription files, these Eland files, uh, into resources like there, the correct format for resources. So I built a little, uh, Python, uh, QUT application, and this, the, the, the, uh, researcher who was supervising me, uh,[inaudible], um, was sufficiently impressed that he invited me to come back as a research assistant to work on other projects for the lab. Um, so that was, that was how I got started in research. Now, while the summer research and winter research scholarships don't pay very much, the, uh, the research assistant position is basically work whenever you want during the week. And we will give you the same rate as tutoring, um, sort of guaranteed up to a certain number of hours per week. So for me, I think that was, uh, 15 hours a week that I could spend, uh, working on these projects. Now, the work will vary based on the researcher and the project. Initially, I started out cleaning up, uh, some of the code they'd already written. Now, if you have the misfortune to interact with academic code, it's very different to sort of industry code, uh, you'll have single little variables or in one particularly fund case, every variable being named data, um, regardless of what it contains. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so cleaning that up and making it a little bit more professional, a little bit more extensible was my first job. And I spent a few months doing that before I was moved to another project, uh, working on speech recognition. So developing a framework, uh, for speech recognition, uh, developing speech recognition models based on, again, this, this transcribed data, um, you develop a machine learning model, um, to effectively recognize, uh, language. And obviously your results depend on how much data you have and how you get set up. But the idea was that if people have the data, but don't have the technological sophistication to work out, uh, the underlying library, then we can give them a nice, pretty GUI, uh, that lets them build their own models and interact with it and use it, uh, with sort of minimal, minimal technical background. And I still work on this project today. Um, I'm still sort of a research assistant. Um, I did go in for another summer scholarship following the winter one, um, which I was also doing while on that trip to San Francisco and newly president. So again, it was, it was a bit hectic, but, um, in, in my experience, uh, it's almost possible to make anything work. Uh, if you're like I was worried about going on the San Francisco trip, uh, having just sort of taken on this, this new role, uh, as a research assistant. Uh, but my boss was fine with it. He was like, do what you can. And then we can sort of, if you want to, you can make up the hours when you get back. Um, or you can work from there if you need to, or if you have the time. Um, so that, that flexibility is fantastic, particularly when you're a uni student and you've got other deadlines and the ability to not do work for a couple of weeks is just fantastic. And I would recommend it to anybody. Um,

Speaker 1: 32:15

Hm. I, yeah, I guess, yeah, that, that, uh, comment about you can make anything work, I think, is there good, um, thing to say, cause like when you have all these different opportunities, I've found you get a lot more mileage out of just taking them and seeing where they go then to, I guess, see an opportunity and say, Oh, I don't have time. Or, Oh, I wouldn't be able to, you know, to an extent of course, like be able to manage your time, but

Speaker 3: 32:47

Yeah, you, you, you need to need to keep in mind things like your mental health and your ability, like you need to get sleep and stuff. But in, in, in my experience, people are much more willing to compromise and work with you, uh, than you'd expect. And sure. It might lead to an awkward conversation. We have to say to somebody, Oh, I'm look, I'm sorry. Uh, I've I need to cut down on my obligations and I've had to do that as well, because I, um, in, in what I would call downtime or I didn't have a few jobs on the go, uh, I reached out to some, uh, startup founders at, uh,[inaudible] I lab and worked with them. But eventually when better paying or well paying work, uh, came along, I had to turn around and say, uh, I look, I'm sorry. Uh, here's, here's what I've built for you. I hope it helps. Um, I, uh, I need to go and focus on other stuff and like I've never had someone not be okay with that, um, that they, they, they might be disappointed. Um, but, uh, in my experience they rarely even show that. Um, so you have to, I guess the biggest thing for me was that I, I didn't know about these opportunities the first time around, so I was determined to take advantage of everything that I could. Um, and you don't, you don't really, apart from LinkedIn stalking people, you don't, you don't really know what what's available. Um, I mean, I, I have a feeling it's just a problem of like, there's too much on the go at once for the university to communicate this all very effectively. Um, but it certainly feels like if you're not paying attention, you can, you can miss out. Um,

Speaker 1: 34:37

Yeah, I found the LinkedIn stalking is a wonderful way to find out opportunities for myself. I guess I found some I engaged in even like, um, yeah, but I guess, um, there's also this experience, um, I guess both of us have a little bit of familiarity with, um, in different ways. Uh, and that's I guess, a semester exchange. Um, yes. Uh, I guess, yeah. Can you tell me about that? Um, Oh, I'm sorry.

Speaker 3: 35:11

Yes. Uh, for, for those unaware, um, COVID has, uh, destroyed and cruelly torn apart. The plans of, of many people, uh, intended on going on exchange. Um, and fortunately I did my exchange back in 2018. Um, but if I know it's, it's difficult to talk about it now, and it's difficult to say, yeah, go out and do this now. But as far as, as far as experiences that are going to, uh, broaden your horizons, I guess, uh, for want of a better phrase, uh, it's, it's difficult to go past exchange. Um, and a lot of people look at exchange and immediately write it off as something that's in feasible because of the financial burden, but there's support there from the federal government. Um, you can effectively get, uh, seven or$8,000, uh, added to your hex, but then they, they give you that money, uh, to use for facilitating your exchange. You add that to the exchange grants that are normally provided by the university, um, which I think, uh, most, most students, uh, if I understand correctly get a thousand dollars, which is what I got. And if you're a particularly, uh, academically gifted, uh, then you're entitled to a$3,000 grant. Um, but it's, it's difficult to state how, how valuable the experience was. Um, I know a lot of people use it as an opportunity to learn another language. For me, it was an opportunity to go overseas and study things that weren't offered at ECU. Um, that was my first motivation. Um, the second motivation was that I wanted to travel, um, and particularly travel the United States. Cause I hadn't been there since I was three years old. Um, I, I tried to make the most of it. I, I had planned, um, and set up for, uh, exchange first, uh, at the university of Connecticut. Um, and then a second semester straight after that, uh, at the university of Edinburgh, the university of Glasgow, um, obviously the, cause it was still six months out. It was all still pending. Um, but, uh, I, I didn't make it to the UK, um, because I got sick, uh, after my first semester, but the first semester alone was definitely worthwhile. Um, I really enjoyed my time at Yukon, but I also traveled around it. So I landed in New York. Um, it was nine days before semester was supposed to start, um, and traveled up through Boston and Rhode Island, um, sort of seeing all the science, doing the freedom trail and, um, I didn't get to see as much of Neil cause I would've liked to because there was a snowstorm. Um, so I didn't make it to Columbia. Um, but uh, finally got to Yukon. The university experience is very different over there. Um, it's, it's sort of, mind-boggling like the, I guess the, the tape that they have on it is that if you're paying that much to go to university, um, you should focus on university and all of the things university has to offer. Um, the, I guess the norm is that people, uh, weren't working, which compared to Australia was, was very different. Um, there also a lot less people or a lot smaller proportion who would sort of commute, uh, to, to, uh, stores where, um, Yukon is sort of out in the sticks of Connecticut. Um, but it's a little town and university set up and you get, you get assigned to a dorm, which again is wild, uh, by comparison, I guess it wouldn't seem that strange to people going through college at UVU, um,

Speaker 1: 39:30

The minority, I guess. Yeah,

Speaker 3: 39:31

Yeah, yeah. So it sort of flipped on its head over there. Um, and I don't know, it was, it was weird being like food was all included. Um, they just had these, uh, refectory, uh, outlets that were open all the time. You go in and excuse me, uh, fill up your tray. And, uh, they like bottomless ice cream and pancakes every morning for breakfast. Um, it was, it was kind of wild. It was also kind of insightful as to like how that would impact your, uh, health and physiology, but it certainly impacted mine. Um, but I guess the, those things were weird, but there were also things that were, I guess, fantastic. Um, I was there during what they call the spring semester. Um, but it snowed every week. Um, which again, as, as a, in Connecticut.

Speaker 1: 40:31

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 40:32

Yeah. I mean, it makes sense like that, but it's also a weird thing to experience coming from spending most of your life in Brisbane. Um, uh, especially when you've just taken to shaving your entire head, the feeling of like snowflakes melting on like a bull scalpers, uh, quite concerning. Uh, but they're also facilities that we didn't have, um, things like, uh, on campus skating, rinks, um, massive sort of, uh, again, this was pre COVID, but, uh, big rallies when there were basketball games and, um, things that were just eminently uncomfortable, like cheerleaders and like the whole Greek scene. Um, but they're also like very interesting cultural things like you've down one, uh, uh, street one, one of the streets that hemmed in the university proper. Um, there was, uh, religious institutions for every major faith just to just down a whole street. Um, and those big Jewish population at Yukon. Um, so I got to talk with some people that Judaism in the way that like, you're just not exposed to here, I guess. Um, and the courses, the courses were very different, um, of courses like. So I, I, I set out to take courses that weren't offered at EKU. Um, so the, the two of those at the time, um, were theory of computation what's theory of computing at AEQ, um, 2048, uh, that was taught very differently there. It was basically a mathematics course. Um, so we went through Turing machines and Lambda calculus and push down automata and those kinds of things. Um, and those have become a sort of a passion of mine since then. Um, the course was quite difficult, uh, and I'm not a particularly diligent student. Um, I'd also done something quite foolish. Uh, this was the first time in, um, think like 12 years that I haven't been employed. Um, so I decided to take all of that extra time, um, given that I was, was nearly free and invested into doing more uni work, um, which I guess isn't the normal thing. Most people would travel or, uh, do like social stuff. Um, but I, I don't know. I was trying to take advantage of stuff like, uh, they offered a graduate class in quantum computing that they would let me take. Um, and I also took, uh, information security, uh, networking and operating systems because I had heard that they weren't the best at Yuku. Um, so that, that I guess, and that would, would remain my recommendation, um, try and pick subjects that either aren't offered or aren't taught well. And, um, but, uh, I did, and I did do some traveling. I did most of my traveling before and after I spent a month after sort of traveling back across, uh, the top of the States. So I went up to, um, Columbus, Ohio went to a music festival, and then I went on to Cleveland, Ohio and went to U S pay con, um, and met some interesting people, um, sort of a fundamental two or three that you hear about on the internet, but then there there's suddenly real. Um, yeah. Yeah. Well, it was, it was crazy like, um, the Michael, uh, who runs a long running podcast on Python Python, um, taught by them to me, uh, who, uh, yeah, I've been listening to for years. Um, at that point, uh, I ended up having dinner with him and, um, at piko it was just wild and I met, um, Kenneth[inaudible] who was there. Um, I think he was working for digital ocean at the time. Um, I saw van Rossum. Uh, it was just very, very intense. Um,

Speaker 1: 45:06

The,

Speaker 3: 45:07

I don't go and then I made my trip off. It was basically visiting, uh, us, uh, universities. So I went to the university of Chicago and Washington and Stanford. Um, and,

Speaker 1: 45:20

And just to

Speaker 3: 45:23

Tried to take in the culture, I also tried pizza in all of the major us cities and which one

Speaker 1: 45:31

Was the best I have to say,

Speaker 3: 45:33

Chicago. Um, that's sort of like deep crusty sort of thing. I dunno. Um, yeah. Um, and I got to take in like, uh, art museums and stuff, just, I guess the, the culture that I've always found kind of lacking in Australia. Um, there was also unpleasant parts to being in a kind of like, we take a lot of stuff for granted here in Australia. Um, things like, uh, health care and, uh, homelessness and stuff, uh, much more prevalent in the U S as I went down the West coast from Seattle, um, it just got worse and worse. Um, and it's, it's hard to take in when you've been relatively isolated from that in Australia. It's not that it doesn't exist here. It's just that it's less prevalent and it's sort of, depending on where you go, you, you you're not necessarily exposed to it. Um, but it was, it was very confronting and it did very much, uh, sour. My, my view of the United States, I went over there with, I guess, rose-tinted glasses. Um, I don't, I don't regret doing it at all. I mean, the friends that I made and the stuff that I got to study, um, at Yukon and all of those cultural things that I got to see, um, made it all much more worthwhile. Um, but, uh, there, there are, uh, there are things that, um, positive that are a part of those experiences as well.

Speaker 1: 47:18

Yes. Yeah, the good, the bad, and I guess you don't really see the bad until he spent six months living there.

Speaker 3: 47:23

Yeah. Yeah. Cause I mean, it's, it's easy enough. Like obviously I've been on, um, I have visited, uh, the States since for like, for that startup adventure trip. Um, and it's, it's quite again like prevalent in San Francisco. Um, but where we were, we were somewhat isolated from it. Um, and only being there for four weeks, it was, um, sort of, not enough for it to gets creep under your skin,

Speaker 1: 48:00

I guess. Um, I guess after all those experiences, um, if you've just graduated, which I guess is really exciting. Um, firstly, congratulations. Uh, thank you. And secondly, uh, what's next?

Speaker 3: 48:17

Um, so I'm, I'm moving, excuse me. Uh, I'm uh, moving down to Sydney, um, I'm currently doing an internship with it last year. Um, and then, uh, I'll be, uh, looking to just start a grad role, um, in February. Um, but I'm also looking forward to being able to have a bit of a change of scenery. Um, after 10 years at Q, um, I don't necessarily want to stop learning. I mean, the, the appeal of undergraduate course workers has kind of faded a tad after a decade, but, uh, I'm, I do need to, uh, take on honors, um, the, uh, and I'm, and I'm planning on doing that at USW. Um, and hopefully I can, cause I had a bit of a strange situation where I transitioned from software engineering, where I, uh, had to do a thesis and I didn't do a thesis, uh, and then transitioned into computer science so that I could sort of leave early and get started on, on a career. Um, but I have this sort of thesis hanging over my head and I'm trying to, uh, get credit for that at UNFW. Um, so that I can just sort of do my coursework and move on. And then from there, um, I mean I'm hoping one day to, to do a PhD. Um, but I suspect it would probably be sort of part-time on the side of, of work. Uh, yeah. So those, those are the plans. Um, I guess we'll see how it all pans out.

Speaker 1: 49:55

You still, I guess, want to stay around and you need just a little bit on the side.

Speaker 3: 50:00

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I, I don't know if I ever want to stop learning. Um, I've always been the kind of person who was motivated by deadlines and, uh, sort of keeping up with my peers and that kind of thing. Um, so I've gotten, I've gotten better at learning on my own, but I do need like the PhD is the goal that honors is kind of compulsory at this point. Um,

Speaker 1: 50:28

One final question I have, uh, is there anything you'd tell yourself your past self from when you first walked into, you know, first of all, through those NICU Gates, I don't know if he really has Gates, but you know what I mean? Um, is there anything you'd tell yourself any advice as you just walk out of high school and you, yeah. I mean, anyone, anyone listening to us, he might be in the early stages of university and wanting to make the most out of that time, anything you'd say.

Speaker 3: 51:00

Yeah. Uh, so I guess the first thing is that I would recommend taking some time to work out what you like and what you could see yourself doing. I didn't do that coming out of school. I just sort of did sort of a mix of what I fell into with psychology and what my, one of my parents did with finance. Um, and that's not like that's not the way to go about it if you, if there are, I I'm, I'm jealous of the people that like grow up, knowing that they want to be a doctor or something, um, or they, they grew up knowing that they want to be a civil engineer. Uh, but if you're not one of those people, like I wasn't used, you really need to take the time to explore the options. Now you can do that at university, just enroll in a sort of general purpose degree, like a bachelor of arts or a bachelor of science. You can always change your mind later, take things, try them out. Um, and you'll probably fall in love with something. Um, like I did with computer science. Um, obviously I was doing it externally, but, um, I would have saved a lot of time if I hadn't done that exploration first, rather than out of boredom, uh, four and a half years into a five, five years of a degree. Um, it's not, it's not a problem if you change your mind. Um, but yeah. Do do that exploration fall in love with something, whether it's computer science or like one of my friends, um, uh, comparative religion, um, it, doesn't it like you can make a career out of practically anything. Um, it's just a matter of finding what it is that you can do, uh, uh, and, and be happy doing, I guess. Um, obviously it'd be ideal if you, uh, found that thing to be computer science and joined DTCs, but, um, it's, it's not, uh, it's not for everybody. Um, everybody should have the ability to do it, but, um, it's, uh, yeah, just a matter of finding what makes you happy.

Speaker 1: 53:05

It's exploring all those parts as early as you can.

Speaker 3: 53:08

Yeah. And, and I mean, once, once you have found that path, uh, look for people who are further down that path than you and ask them what they regret, um, or what they, what they've done that they found to be advantageous, um, find out where the are, because there won't, there might not necessarily be, um, someone telling you or someone laying it out for, you might have to seek that out. Um, and I've found that it's a lot easier to find that path take on all those experiences than to have to deal with the regret of having not even known that they existed, um, years down the line.

Speaker 1: 53:51

Alrighty, thanks so much. Um, I've learned a lot listening to this and I guess hearing about your experiences and I'm sure a lot of other, um, uni students will find it especially useful and especially those, I guess, in the early, early time. Um, did, yeah, thanks so much for coming along. Um, thanks for having me. It's great. Yeah. And also, thanks for all the contributions you've made to, you can see us, you have the past few years and, you know, helping it blossom into this society of this today. And, um, yeah, I guess this, this show is, uh, um, one of your, uh, I guess little contributions as well, getting this off the ground.

Speaker 3: 54:33

Yeah. I, I, I mean, giving you QCs has given me so much, it felt only right to give back and I'd suggest, I guess that's one thing that I didn't say explicitly was that getting involved in the club and anybody can run for the committee. Um, getting involved in that too is just one of the most rewarding experiences because you, you form again that network with those people, um, that lasts forever.

Speaker 1: 55:00

All right. Thanks. Thanks so much. And yeah, I wish you all the best in your future endeavors. Thank you. Hi, it's Martin here again. I'd just like to say a big thank you to all of the listeners in 2020 for joining us on this new and wonderful journey over the past few months, Liv and I have had the honor to host this new form of UCS content, and we think it's been a big hit. So thanks to everyone for all of your support, as I'm sure many of you are aware it's holiday season coming up and the router will be taking a short break over Christmas and new year's to recuperate. We'll be relaunching in 2021 with us second season, bigger and better than ever, and hopefully with a nicer jingle until then as always come join our Slack community@slackdotcs.org and follow us on our social media to keep up to date with all things. If you see us, have a Merry Christmas happy holidays, happy new year, and we'll see you back in 2021.

Speaker 2: 56:08

[inaudible].