Andrew Pronschinske
November 18, 2015
By Emma Alexander, Honors Communications Intern
I recently spoke with Andrew Pronschinske, a freshman in the Honors College, a Computer Science major from Westfield, Indiana. His future aspirations include conducting research in the field of machine learning. He says he was drawn to Purdue because he loved the computer science program and had heard great reviews from fellow students at Purdue.
Though Andrew has been in the Honors College for but a brief amount of time, he has already become aware of many of the benefits. He shared,
As short as it's been, my time in the Honors College has been extremely interesting. The student community, the friendliness of the professors, and the opportunities of the program have allowed me to do things I might never have considered, such as the Dawn or Doom conference. It's great to have opportunities outside of your major to broaden your skills and ideas.
As part of his first semester in the Honors College, Andrew took an Evolution of Ideas course. The topic he selected? “Future,” taught by Dr. Emily Allen. The Dawn or Doom sessions fit very well into the theme of the class; therefore, Dr. Allen assigned all of the students to attend one of the sessions and participate in the writing contest. Just like all of his peers, Andrew completed this assignment. However, he received much more than a good grade. Andrew’s essay placed third overall. In addition to bragging rights, third place also came with a monetary prize. Of course, I was intrigued. So I asked Andrew to tell me a little bit more about his experience.
I went to the session of Dr. Xuedong Huang, a distinguished computer scientist working at Microsoft, who gave a talk about his research into spoken language recognition technology. During the presentation, he also touched on various other applications of artificial intelligence and the ways they can be used to create a sort of personal assistant. I've always had an interest in the impact of giving programs the ability to learn, given that I want to work in that field in the future. What are the dangers? What are the opportunities? In my essay, I basically outlined the context of machine learning in society and what it means for the relationship between people and their tools.
Andrew’s clear passion for the subject area surely revealed itself in his essay, perhaps playing a role in his performance in the contest. In reflecting on the experience in total Andrew said, “The whole experience of the talk and the exploration of ideas was really exciting, and I would recommend that everyone check out the conference. There's something for all interests there.”
You can learn more about Dawn or Doom at http://www.purdue.edu/dawnordoom/.
