Inspirit AI Review from a Brown University Student
Cole Nesselson is currently an undergraduate student at Brown University studying Chemical Biology and Environmental Studies. Before getting admitted to Brown University, Cole was a student in the Inspirit AI Scholars program. He participated in the program in Spring 2021, and in this interview, he shares a review of his experience in the program, answering the question: Is Inspirit AI worth it?
Cole Nesselson’s Inspirit AI Alum Profile
How did the AI Scholars program impact your preparation for college and your academic journey?
“Through demonstrating how useful programming and AI are in understanding large biological datasets, the Inspirit AI program made me eager to pursue programming in college to support my interest in biology.”
What project did you work on in the AI Scholars program?
Covid-19 Genomics
In this project, students trace the origins of COVID-19 to help understand its spread. Students learn about the biology behind the virus and techniques for working with genomic data. Then students create machine learning models to identify the geographic origins of different COVID-19 strains. Finally, students apply advanced techniques like dimensionality reduction for building more accurate models from complex biological datasets.
Which colleges/universities did you apply to, and which did you get accepted to?
Cole applied to highly selected colleges, including Brown University, where he now currently attends. Take a look at his 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. Cole chose to showcase Inspirit AI on his application in the activities section, where he mentioned participating in the program, as well as his essays, where he wrote about his 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 Cole, his project helped inspire an interest in genomics.
“The AI Scholars project I did informed my interest in analyzing genomic data during my fungal genomic research last summer. [As a student at Brown,] I have taken a course called Phage Hunters which dealt with isolating a bacteriophage, which is a virus that infects bacteria, sequencing its genome, and then analyzing its genes (similar to the Inspirit AI project I worked on). I worked on fungal genomics research for designing more sustainable biofuels.”
What advice do you have for high school students applying to their dream colleges?
“Be yourself! Discuss how you've spent your time in high school and what has interested you and brought you joy. Explain why those activities have brought you joy and share how these colleges can allow you to build upon this interest with their programs.”
For Cole, the Inspirit AI program was more than worth it, from showcasing AI Scholars on his college application to applying his learnings from the Inspirit AI course to his 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.
