Fall 2016 recap - what I've been up to
Timeโs flying, as always. Itโs been already 7 months since I returned to Korea. I apologize for seriously neglecting my blog.
I want to give a little update of what Iโve been up to these past months.
I spent a really nice summer vacation, mostly relaxing. I went to Sokcho on the east cost for a week of hiking and catching Pokรฉmon. I attended PyCon APAC where I got to know the great people from Django Girls โ more on that later. Finally, I settled in Daejeon. Thanks to the help of my friends and my previous experience with Korea, this went pretty smoothly. Ever since, Iโve been very happy to be here.
In September, I started my studies in KAIST. Iโm on a Dual Degree program; the official plan is to spend the first semester at TU Berlin, second and third at KAIST and finally return to TUB to write my thesis. The Fall semester was very exciting. I got to know a bunch of cool people and took some very interesting classes.
This was a special class offered by Prof. Juho Kim, who is also my advisor. Crowdsourcing is a sub topic within Human-computer interaction. It was seriously one of the best classes I have ever taken; great structure of contents and highly interactive with reading and presenting papers and working on projects. We produced prototypes and a paper. You can find more on the course website.
This was the first time I systematically learned how to read papers. It was great to develop an understanding of the field over the course of a semester. Although stressful at times, it was an exercise I wouldnโt want to miss.
KSE531 Human Computer Interaction Theory & Design
I took another, more general class on theory and design of HCI. This is not really a Computer Science class, as it has a quite non-technical viewpoint. The course went over many basics that I had known before. The most remarkable things were the second half which we spent mostly talking about behavior and social factors such as self efficacy and biases; and Prof. Wanchul Yoon, who is super knowledgable and has a lot of experience in this field, having researched HCI since the 1990s! He personally gave me a lot of good advice.
Asked my professor for a little feedback on our project and got a 1000 word motivational email on how to be a good designer.
โ Paul Grau (@graup) January 3, 2017
CS520 Theory of Programming Languages
To be frank, the topics of this class turned out to be incredibly dull. I am not someone who despises theory per se, and the professor is trying hard to keep students awake, but spending a whole semester on denotational semantics, proof trees and continuation passing style transformations is just not very enjoyable for me. Nevertheless, the course got me to think about Lambda calculus and type systems again, so it wasnโt a waste of time.
KIXLAB - KAIST Interaction Lab
A big part of being a Master student in KAIST is spending time in your advisorโs research lab. Our lab is called KIXLAB. Weโre a part of the bigger HCI picture (of which there is a lot at KAIST), focussing on everything that is concerned with interaction at scale: learning, data mining, collective action.
During the semester I didnโt manage to contribute much to my own research. Doing two project-heavy classes at the same time makes it a bit hard to brainstorm more. However, I am spending the winter vacation here, and will continue to contribute to one of our labโs projects. I will talk more about that in another post.
Iโm really glad I have this opportunity to work together with great people on fascinating problems. The atmosphere here is really good, and the department has more than enough funding, so the facilities are great, too.
Django Girls is a non-profit organization and a community that organizes free programming workshops to empower and help women. This is important because women still are under-represented in tech. Increased diversity will benefit all of us.
After meeting the Django Girls Seoul team in the summer, they put me in touch with Hyungyu Kang, a Daejeon-based developer who was thinking about launching a Django Girls chapter in Daejeon. So we met up and started organizing our first workshop! Hereโs a post in Korean outlining what we did. Let me just say, it was a really good experience. I love doing events especially in the Python/Django community. Everyone is so warm-hearted and positive. I hope I can do more like this in the future.
As mentioned before, I am spending most of my time working in the lab. Still, I managed to go on two short-but-memorable trips: Thailand (Bangkok and Chiang Mai) and Osaka!
I really enjoyed staying in Chiang Mai. I understand why it ranks high amongst Digital Nomads โ affordable and relaxed, with good internet. Bangkok is a fun place, too. So many things to do! I tried floating in a sensory deprivation tank for the first time there. It was also my first time to spend Christmas in a warm climate, which made the trip even more special.
I have been to Japan many times, but it never ceases to amaze me. Compared to Korea, everything is much older and smaller, which has a certain charm. And obviously, great cuisine. Flights from Seoul only take one hour, so I hope Iโll get more chances to explore Japan in the future.
I love traveling, as it gives you a new perspective on the world. Seeing new things gives me a lot of new ideas. Seeing the worldโs diverse cultures makes you think about your own culture. There are many approaches to life โ mine isnโt necessarily the best.
