Cornell SoNic Workshop
Over the summer, I had the opportunity to participate in this week-long program called the SoNic Research workshop. Professor Hakim Weatherspoon of Cornell University hosted it, and it gets people from unrepresented backgrounds
in the Ph.D. realm and gets them exposed to Ph.D. life and research.
Here is my list of events that unfolded during the program.
Sunday
I missed my flight...
but luckily I managed to get a flight change...
11 hours later...
After being put on standby twice and having a flight
canceled.
I never want to miss a flight ever again.
I landed at Syracuse, and I met someone else who was
participating in the SoNic program. Her name is Stacy, and she goes to USF. Her flight was delayed because of the weather. We got on an Uber that Cornell
provided
us. After a spooky 2 hour Uber ride we arrived on campus at 1 am. I just crashed at the dorm.
Monday
Everyone was introduced to Hakim Weatherspoon, the man in charge of the program, Greg Morrisett, the director of CIS, and Lance Collins, the dean of engineering. The main takeaways from the presentations were the benefits of higher
education, how Cornell Tech is meant to bridge the gap between higher education and business, and the type of person you need to be
for higher education.
After that, we started our workshop in which we used C to
make recreations of a routers physical layer to understand inner-packet gaps and how those gaps are not evenly spaced when passed through the network.
When
the workshop was over for the day, we went on a tour of Ithaca and were introduced to the breathtaking waterfalls, gorgeous landscapes, and calm atmosphere.
Finally, I did not understand much of the material
during
the workshop, so I asked one of the Ph.D. students for help. His name is Darian, and we became friends, he gives me life advice, we have the same thought process and opinions on CS, and we both play a lot of Smash
Bros.
Tuesday
The morning was more of a repeat of Monday morning, but with Ph.D. students giving their point of view about Ph.D. life. We also had a celebration of diversity, and we even got to learn more about blockchain. After that, there was
our research workshop, and then I went to Dairy Bar and College Town Bagels with some of the participants.
Wednesday
We went to a conference that was on campus and got to hear a
presentation given by a Prof Jennifer Rexford at Princeton about network
configurations.
I went to Cornell's mechatronics lab and got to see how soft
robots
and motion capture works.
I got to network with Ph.D. students at Cornell.
Thursday
We got a lecture on material science, networks, ethics, we finished our workshop research, and we also went on a boat tour.
Friday
We gave presentations on what we learned during the workshop. We also made thank you cards for the Sonic Staff and a thank you video. The staff loved it a lot.
Saturday
I went back home and got a cold.
Aftermath
It's fun to meet these new people from different backgrounds and walks of life. I got to hear some stories, and some aspire me to be better while others made me thankful for what I have. I also learned a lot from the presenters. I
got to understand blockchain better, a basic understanding of how networks work, and a reminder of how important ethics is in the field of CS.
If you seem interested in the SoNic program here is the link
https://www.cs.cornell.edu/content/workshop/sonic