Is Inspirit AI Worth It? Hear from a Brown Student
Lauryn Mills is currently an undergraduate student at Brown University studying Computer Science. Before getting admitted to Brown University, Lauryn was a student in the Inspirit AI Scholars program. She participated in the program in Summer 2021, and in this interview, she shares a review of her experience in the program, answering the question: Is Inspirit AI worth it?
Lauryn Mills’ Inspirit AI Alum Profile
How did the AI Scholars program impact your preparation for college and your academic journey?
“It prepared me for my academic journey because it gave me the opportunity to be involved in a competitive program and it allowed for me to gain exposure to a field that I was unfamiliar with.”
What project did you work on in the AI Scholars program?
AI + Skin Cancer Detection
In this project, students use computer vision and image classification tools to develop machine learning models to diagnose skin lesion images. Students explore a variety of image manipulation techniques and convolutional neural networks as you create an effective model that could help save lives. Students also study your model for bias, to make sure that it works for people with a variety of skin tones. Finally, students take your model one step further by packaging it into an application with a user interface.
Which colleges/universities did you apply to, and which did you get accepted to?
Lauryn applied to highly selected colleges, including Brown University, where she now currently attends. Take a look at her college admissions journey below.
In what ways did you feature your Inspirit AI experience on your college applications?
Many students will choose to showcase their AI project-building experience on their college application in a variety of ways. From including Inspirit AI on the activities section to writing an essay about their project, many students will highlight the work they completed as part of the AI Scholars program to help bolster their application. Lauryn chose to showcase Inspirit AI on her application in the activities section, where she mentioned participating in the program, as well as her essays, where she wrote about her Inspirit AI project-building experience.
How has your AI Scholars project affected your career journey?
A student’s learning journey doesn’t end with AI Scholars—the Inspirit AI program can be a launching point for many students’ college and career journeys exploring computer science and artificial intelligence. For Lauryn, her project helped inspire an interest in healthcare.
“I think it has affected my journey because in the process of applying for competitive schools, I believe this program put my application at a competitive advantage. I think it helped me be comfortable with being uncomfortable and trying new fields of stem that I may not have been particularly comfortable with.”
What has your college and career journey been like since you completed the AI Scholars program?
“I have done one internship at Howard University College of Medicine doing wet lab HIV research, two years at Boston Medical Center leading a public health oriented HIV study, one semester as a research assistant doing education policy research.”
What advice do you have for high school students applying to their dream colleges?
“Be as authentic as you can. What is something on your application that you would be incomplete without. If someone were to ask you to describe yourself, what's the first thing you would say. Write about that.”
For Lauryn, the Inspirit AI program was more than worth it, from showcasing AI Scholars on her college application to applying her learnings from the Inspirit AI course to her work as a college student. If you liked this Inspirit AI review, we encourage you to apply to the live online program here.
About Inspirit AI
AI Scholars Live Online is a 10 session (25-hour) program that exposes high school students to fundamental AI concepts and guides them to build a socially impactful project. Taught by our team of graduate students from Stanford, MIT, and more, students receive a personalized learning experience in small groups with a student-teacher ratio of 5:1.
