A witty and fierce debate champion, NYU senior Ella shares her incredible experiences working under the Executive Office of the President and how she merges her passion for politics with her remarkable expertise in science and technology. Keep scrolling for public speaking tips from the debate queen herself as well as food for thought on complex and relevant topics such as immigration, trade and privacy.
The Rundown:
- Name: Ella Kuzmenko
- Year: Senior
- School and Major: CAS for Computer Science
- Hometown: Bellevue, Washington
HC NYU: Last summer, you worked as a National Science and Technology Council Apprentice in the US government. Can you tell us more about this experience and what it was like?
Ella: I heard about this incredible opportunity from NYU’s own Women in Computing group. The NSTC is part of the Office of Science and Technology Policy under the Executive Office of the President that actively advises the President on changes and advances in science and technology. Every year, the OSTP selects a few interns that help them further enact congressionally mandated policies. As an intern last summer, I worked under the director of the NSTC and was in charge of tracking the NSTC’s congressionally mandated duties. When I saw a lot of really intelligent staff members communicating through static documents, I decided I would try to make their communication more productive.
Even though I had rather limited knowledge of computer science, I worked with software engineers within the organization and the OMB, to begin developing a real time communication platform. As I was working under the head executive secretary—the director of the NSTC is assigned the role of executive secretary of all other executive secretaries in the OSTP—I also trained executive secretaries on how to better leverage the internal federal government software which was interesting because I was confronted with the incredible autonomy that each agency has when implementing their own agency’s software needs.
HC NYU: You won second place at the Washington State Lincoln Douglas Debate Champion and you’ve also served as a personal debate coach for various high schools. What do you appreciate most about debate?
Ella: So, freshman year in high school, my sister dragged me to a debate meeting and in my very first mock debate I had to defend why George W. Bush was a good president, and after about a minute and a half I remember being stumped and thinking I want to be able to say more. Later, I learned how to actually explain my own reasoning and now it feels like there’s never enough time to fully present my arguments. What I realized throughout my years in debate and now appreciate so much is just how hard it actually is to uphold your own argument while at the same time, refuting the other person’s argument in an intelligent manner.
What I appreciate the most about debate is being in a space where people value defending not only their arguments, but the reasoning for their arguments, which is not something I see everyday, especially not since the election. I think that debate is extremely useful and valuable, regardless of what major someone is pursuing, in that it always comes in handy when you are defending your arguments and beliefs, or quite simply, just trying to persuade someone or sell them something.
HC NYU: Public speaking is universally feared. If you could give a few tips regarding public speaking, what would you share?
Ella: In high school, my coaches taught me to always explain the “claim, warrant, and impact” of my argument, and I’ve found that this structure helps speakers advance their thoughts regardless of whether they’re debating or public speaking. In short, your claim is your statement, your warrant is your reasoning, and your impact explains the significance of the thought you’re trying to advance—the “why should we care”—and if you can start by framing why your audience should care about anything, let alone whatever you’re speaking to, you’ll gain a higher retention rate.
Most of the time, your audience is there to learn, but you need to remind them why they should care about your topic area specifically. Walk in like your audience is interested but you still need to sell them on your idea. This will force you to make your presentation more engaging and will likely win over a larger audience share.
Secondly, I think that a lot of people are afraid that they’ll get asked questions that maybe they aren’t prepared for. To that I would say, you have to understand the opposition and understand why they really believe what they do. It will make you a comfortable public speaker if you’re able to speak to whatever concerns the opposition has as well. Then, as long as you don’t give up and continue speaking out loud—in front of the mirror or to your parents or friends, the more practice you can get and the bigger audiences you can get yourself in front of, the better you’ll get.
HC NYU: You are also politically active on campus. What do you consider to be our core American values?
Ella: I think that our core American values were the values this country was founded on, which at the time meant rejecting the British Crown’s hand reaching deeper and deeper into our pockets after their own irresponsible financial decisions, and founding a minimal governmental body to protect our most basic rights. Ultimately, our core values ought to be working to minimize the barrier to entry for our fellow men to prosper themselves and their families and relying on the government for only three things: the protection of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
I think when we look back at how and why our country was founded, it was because we didn’t see the government as a profit making machine. Rather, we saw the government as essentially there to protect our most basic rights, and we thought people should be able to prosper themselves without government interference.
When I look around now, it almost seems as if we are begging for the government to provide us with protections and benefits that it wasn’t originally designed to provide us with. We’re also not really asking where our tax dollars go and not knowing what the millions of dollars of tax money actually funds, perpetuates the same irresponsible spending. In short, I think the lack of transparency concerns me most because I think it deviates from our core American values which rely on the government for only the most basic minimum restrictions and allow people to further themselves without government intervention.
HC NYU: Which political issue do you think is most urgent right now and why?
Ella: To me, the most urgent issue is immigration and trade because when I look at consumption patterns either domestically or internationally, I think that we rely on these really big trade deals that rely on a lot of cheap consumer goods that are produced as inexpensively as possible in some country that we will never visit, and this type of consumption is wholly unsustainable. We also rely on these large vessels to carry large parcels of cheap goods to be shipped over to the United States, and when you think about the impact of how much carbon cost—whether for producing the cheap trinkets themselves or the fuel necessary to transport them—that actually goes into these products, it’s not priced into the model. And the reason that it’s not priced into the model is that we can produce these things with very cheap labor standards and in very poor conditions because we’re not “directly” exposed to these conditions.
I think to a similar extent, a lot of companies domestically are not “truly” competing efficiently in the market because they rely on very cheap labor from undocumented illegal immigrants. So, we can’t actually price labor accordingly because any person that walks out of the factory who is legally documented—and this happened in Clay County, AL in 1995—and says, ‘I demand a better wage’’– will ultimately have no bargaining power because they can easily be replaced by someone who has come to the country illegally and is comfortable working for a lot less because their own minimum wage—be in from Honduras or Colombia—is a lot less. So I think that in order to disrupt our own consumer spending and producing standards and correct our over-consumption of carbon, we have to prevent the suppression of wages by pricing labor and carbon accordingly. And because a lot of these trade deals were in fact written in private without the needs of the people who work for them in mind, I think negotiating these trade deals with American middle class in mind is crucial.
I think that ultimately, having stricter immigration rules and renegotiating these trade deals will inadvertently take care of a lot of the environmental concerns that we have today.
HC NYU: What do you aspire to achieve with your interest in politics and degree in computer science?
Ella: Technology has always worked to make the lives of ordinary folks easier and if I am to leverage my computer science degree honestly, it would be to continue that trend. Personally, I’ve always been interested in politics just as a citizen who is concerned about the democracy around her, but I would like to see the government work more efficiently, and I think keeping up with technological changes can help it do just that.
While I was working for the government, the OMB was hacked, and the personal information of government employees was leaked. I think it speaks to two things– either the government simply isn’t prepared on the cybersecurity front or the government has too much information, and I think that the latter is most concerning for me. Ultimately, I would like to see the government be more nimble and its policies more targeted and effective, and adapting with the technological landscape should help it achieve just that.
HC NYU: How has NYU changed and shaped you these past four years?
Ella: I’ve been forced at every turn to better explain and understand my own views, and I think that that has been largely beneficial in shaping my political understanding of the world. On a more academic note, I would say that the level of expertise at NYU concerning computer science and financial technology has definitely connected me with people who understand what the industry is doing now and how it’s changing. And so I think that it’s helped me anticipate what the world may look like in next ten or so years, and I believe that that is representative of NYU’s computer science and mathematics department as a whole.
HC NYU: Do you have any plans as of now after graduation?
Ella: I have a few offers at consulting firms.
And in conclusion…
- Favorite Philosopher: At the moment, from what I can understand; Heidegger
- Book to Cozy Up With: Night of January 16th by Ayn Rand
- All Time Favorite Movie: Fargo (1996)
- Hidden Study Spots: The Courant Library on Stern Plaza
- You Like Your Coffee: Black
Contact Ella at:
Email: esk378@nyu.edu
Facebook: Ella Kuzmenko