I attended the Viterbi Graduate Preview Day last week to meet prospective graduate students, and talk to them about my experience at Viterbi so far. I couldn’t make it to this event when I was applying so I’m glad I got to see it now.
The Town and Gown venue never fails to please, and the lunch buffet was no exception. My favorite part was hearing Dr. Maja Mataric talk about her research on socially assistive robots to help improve rehabilitation patients’ recovery rates or autistic children’s social skills. I was not aware that USC was a pioneer in the field of socially assistive robotics or that Microsoft recently announced an initiative to specifically hire autistic adults for their unique skill set. There’s so much great research happening at USC that you don’t always hear about if it’s outside your department or even just your area of focus. That’s why I like events like these.
I also enjoyed meeting the students who had come to Preview Day. Some had come from across the country, and one had crossed the ocean from Shanghai! Some were interested in pursuing research; others were looking at possible careers in sales. Many of them were highly involved in extracurricular activities at their current universities. No matter where they were from, I realized we all had being college students full of ideas in common. There really is no typical college student.
However, any typical or successful college event should include free food and/or swag. I managed to get an awesome Viterbi t-shirt out of this one so it was a win!
To those of you I met who might be reading this post; it was great chatting with you. Good luck on your application and for your future, wherever you end up!
Published on November 4th, 2015
Last updated on August 29th, 2017