Tell me about where are you from?: I’m from Miami Springs, a suburb of Miami, Florida. It’s a pretty small and quiet town tucked next to Miami International Airport, about 20 minutes from the beach.
How does the weather at Amherst compare to the weather back home?: I think this picture sums it up pretty well:
I will say though, I still do get a kick out of my breath condensing and seeing fresh snow.
Why did you choose to attend Amherst?: One big reason was that I had a romantic interest in a certain student here. But academically, it’s one of the top ranked liberal arts colleges in the country, so that’s a plus. The open curriculum really spoke to me, and I heard good things about the computer science department, small as it may be.
What’s are you interested in both academically and leisurely?: Can programming count for both? Yeah, I’m a computer science major and I’m also an officer of the CS club here on campus. I like history too, and I’ve taken a few classes. I also do some electronics stuff, like last semester I was part of a high-altitude balloon launch and we had electronics in the payload, and this year I’m doing monitoring for the aquaponics club.
Have you done any cool experiences outside of school with computer science?: I’ve participated in a few hackathons, which are events where you try to build something cool using code. Last year I attended one at Brown University and got an award for Best Use of Maps.
Tell me more about your hobbies: I spend a lot of time looking at photos of sloths on the internet. I’ve also been reconnecting to my Cuban heritage by cooking Cuban cuisine and listening to Cuban music like Celia Cruz, much to the chagrin of my mother [shout out].
What are your plans for the rest of your time at Amherst and beyond: I don’t think I’ve fully branched out at Amherst and there are still a few departments I’d like to take classes in. And I have yet to take a class at one of the other schools in the consortium. A thesis in computer science is also in the cards right now.
After graduation I’ll be heading to San Francisco because that’s where most of the software development jobs are. That or maybe grad school. I like the sound of Dr. Laney. But then San Francisco after that. And I want to get involved in more activism after school also. There’s a lot of sh!t wrong with the world and I think if everyone made a contribution we could make some serious change sooner rather than later.
Is there any causes you are fighting for now or hope to be apart of in the future?: I think that police brutality is a problem that’s receiving a lot of media attention right now. The worldwide use of fossil fuels is entirely unsustainable. And, not to be a debbie-downer, but I have an intuition that real wages are going to start falling in the developed world at a time when productivity is as high as ever. All of these issues are also intimately connected in my opinion.
What’s something you’ve always wanted to say but never got the chance to say it?: I would say thanks to my group of friends for taking me in really quickly and making me feel like part of the gang. I’m going to miss them when they graduate because I’m a sophomore and they’re mostly juniors. I should probably get to know more people in my grade before senior year comes around. Hit me up!