Verrazano Graduate's Path to Legal Field

Deanna Caccavale, Verrazano Class of 2018, completed major in Political Science and minors in Italian Studies and Legal Studies 
 
My time spent as a student in the Verrazano program has been very enriching. The Verrazano program gave me the tools I need to succeed in life. Upon entering into this program, I did not realize I would be gaining a new family. I have formed unbreakable bonds and learned life lessons that will last a lifetime. I’m sad to see my college experience come to a close, but I am super excited to see what the future has in store for me. For the next chapter of Verrazano students, my advice to you is to never take anything for granted. Make sure to study and work hard, but also don’t forget to enjoy your college experience because before you know it you’ll be graduating. 

Throughout my college career, I’ve had the privilege of partaking in many internships to help solidify my decision to enter the legal profession. These internships provided me with insight about the legal field. I observed attorneys working zealously for their clients to ensure that justice was served. Ever since I was a little girl, I had a dream of becoming an attorney. Being an attorney has always been a passion of mine because I want to ensure that everyone in society is treated justly under the law. 

At the commencement of my junior year at CSI, I began to work on my Senior thesis. I decided to tackle the issue of gender discrimination in the work profession. Specifically, my goal was to understand why it is difficult for women to obtain promotions within prestigious law firms in society. This is an important issue because gender does not only affect women entering the legal profession, but it has affects women in all professions within society. Women need to be aware of the issues they face in the United States to help provide a better future for the youth.  

Deanna with Professor Paris 

 

Professor's Belief in Student Opens Floodgate of Learning and Self Confidence

Brian Keegan, Verrazano Class of 2019, completed major in Computer Science 

Allow me to preface this by saying that I was never a model student or at the top of my class, either slacking off or becoming easily frustrated with the intensity of many of my classes. In many ways, I’ve always thought of myself as the epitome of average. I like to consider myself not necessarily intelligent, but incredibly lucky.
In the fall semester of 2017, I was taking Object Oriented Programming with Professor Natacha Gueorguieva. After submitting a few homework assignments, Professor Gueorguieva asked me if I wanted to do research with her because she was pleased with the quality of my homework (it just so happened that I preferred programming to math/science based classes). Knowing that I had to eventually complete my capstone project for Verrazano, I accepted. Little did I know what I was getting myself into.
In the first few weeks, my mentor introduced me to the topic of Deep Learning, something I have never heard of. Briefly explained, DL is a machine learning technique that uses artificial intelligence and algorithms inspired by the human brain to perform tasks that traditional computing is incapable of. It can perform predictions and recognition. Weather patterns, housing pricing, stock market prices, facial recognition, etc. are all examples of DLtasks.
 Great, I thought. How hard could it be? Once 2018 came and the January winter break rolled around, I began spending most of my days off reading about DL and figuring out how to utilize the software. Luckily (luck is a recurring theme in this research journey of mine), I already had a gaming computer that I was able to utilize for deep learning research. My first challenge came with being able to get all of the software up and running. At the time, I was using the Linux operating system and the install process was so convoluted that I must’ve wiped my storage drive 6 or 7 times because I somehow kept destroying my Linux installations during the driver process (we needed to use special software to tell the graphics card in my computer how to do deep learning, essentially). Fast forward, and eventually I was able to mash together a research task in which I used deep learning to perform regression analysis, comparing different usable methods.
I presented this work at CSI’s Undergraduate Research Conference in February 2018. All done right? Wrong. My mentor saw potential in me and honestly, I thought she was crazy. Me? I used to sleep through my high school classes. I nearly failed Spanish. Yet here I was knee deep into graduate level research that I just barely comprehended. Fast forward to June after classes ended. My mentor presented to me an opportunity to write a 4-page IEEE research paper for MIT’s Undergraduate Research Conference in October 2018, where if it were to be accepted I would be published in the IEEE Xplore Digital Library and I would present my research at MIT. On top of it all, I only had about one month to do it. HA. I thought it was the biggest joke of my life. A delayed April Fool’s. I thought I should just play lotto in that moment and have better chances. After many sleepless nights and about 14 or 15 drafts, I submitted it, and the paper was accepted. I made my way to Cambridge, Massachusetts and presented my work on October 6th, 2018, never expecting to even step foot into MIT in my lifetime.
The College of Staten Island, the Verrazano Honors Program, and my mentor, Natacha Gueorguieva, helped to create the perfect environment for me to unlock hidden talents I didn’t even know I had. For that, I am eternally grateful. After all of this, I didn’t realize just how much I learned about DL until I actually sat down and thought about it. When you’re exposed to this research for a year, the knowledge definitely begins to accumulate. There are so many different applications of DL and it is a very new technology that will be relevant in our daily lives more than ever, so for me to have directly been a contributor to research into the field has undoubtedly been my greatest accomplishment. Since completing what I have done so far, I have passed on my research to new students and am currently exploring other opportunities outside of college. I hope that this anecdote inspires someone, whoever may be reading this, to achieve their goals.

Computer Science Major Continues his Research While Completing his Masters

Christopher Paradiso, Verrazano Class of  2019, Completed Major in Computer Science & Minor in Mathematics

During this project, I learned a lot about the software MATLAB, and also about the field of Machine Learning in Computer Science. This project also exposed me to many different concepts in Mathematics. To learn these concepts, I needed to learn how to read complex mathematical formulas, which is an invaluable skill to gain. 

When I first started back in 2016, I was a bit overwhelmed by the nature of the project, due to the sheer amount of mathematical knowledge involved. However, I was enthusiastic and excited about it, and put a lot of effort into my code and learning. My favorite mathematical concept I learned was the Euclidean Distance, due to how it calculates the distance between 2 objects in any given number of dimensions. I found it interesting how similar the formula is to the Pythagorean theorem, changing the formula from finding the distance given the length to finding the distance given two points.

The project opened my mind to other fields in computer science that I wasn't initially aware of, and I am grateful for that. These fields would be the study of machine learning, data analysis, data mining, and deep learning. The knowledge from these fields can help make problems that are normally impossible or incredibly difficult to solve into something reliably achievable.

 In my research, I got better at my ability to effectively read and trace other people’s code, which is  a necessary skill for team projects throughout the Computer Science field. The project taught me a huge portion of the MATLAB programming language, including the ability to import data, export data, using excel spreadsheets, using mathematical functions, formatting output, and developing GUIs.

I plan to continue working on this project as I pursue my Master’s degree in Computer Science at CSI. The codebase I developed is important for future research, which will involve the clustering of data with more datasets. We also plan on adding features such as Fuzzy Clustering, which is when points may be a member of 2 different clusters, due to uncertainty. SVMs (Support Vector Machines) are another component of the research that requires further development. There are many potential directions the research can go in towards the future, including fields such as data mining and neural networks. Overall, I’m highly satisfied with the results of my research and enjoyed presenting at the undergraduate conference.

Big Passion for Small Compounds

Madrona Boutros, Verrazano Class of 2018, earned a Bachelor of Science in Biology.

The dynamic nature of Biology has continuously sparked my interest, and has allowed me to spend my undergraduate studies pursuing this field. This passion made writing my capstone seem almost effortless. I chose to work on taurine because of its numerous roles, both locally and systemically, in animals. taurine, an amino acid weighing just 125.142 g/mol has an importance in controlling the functions of almost all our biological processes. Ironically, studying Biology opened doors that did not seem related, and just like minuscule compounds like taurine, lead to extensive discoveries.

I worked with Professor El Idrissi, someone I shared a common ground with. We both have a passion and the patience to understand and grasp different parts of neuroscience, and it made the capstone experience a delightful one. He has helped me to understand crucial compounds such as taurine serve a greater purpose in regulating biological processes in order to ensure damage-free cells. 

Madrona did that!

My capstone experience has allowed me to grasp an in-depth knowledge about a topic that was mind boggling for me. How is a small molecule like taurine able to possess multitudinous functions in order to regulate important processes we cannot live without? Studying taurine in-depth has broadened my horizons in the field of Biology. It has allowed me to absorb what I have learned the last four years to aspire to become a medical malpractice attorney. Integrating both my passion and enthusiasm for Biology as well as my expertise is what will allow me to advocate and justify for patients involved in malpractice. During these past four years I have assimilated and absorbed not only basic knowledge in Biology, but also an in-depth and real world application to help me understand and aid my future clients that have been victims of medical malpractice. 

Madrona in the lab