A Review of the Inspirit AI Program: Cornell University Student Shares Her Experience in the Inspirit AI Scholars Program
Claire McHugh is currently an undergraduate student at Cornell University studying Computer Science. Before getting admitted to Cornell University, Claire 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?
Claire McHugh’s Inspirit AI Alum Profile
How did the AI Scholars program impact your preparation for college and your academic journey?
“During the Inspirit AI course, I was on the AI + Finance project group where we coded a machine learning algorithm using Natural Language Processing that analyzed financial tweets made by corporations in order to predict stock trends. This was interesting because not only did it give me an overview of applications of AI in the business marketplace, it also introduced me to high-level coding in the real world and how AI can translate human language in words into data that it can perform mathematical analysis on.”
What project did you work on in the AI Scholars program?
AI + Algorithmic Trading
In this project, students use logistic regression, LSTMs, and BERT to analyze the sentiment of financial tweets. The ultimate goal is to predict long-term stock market trends, which can help people manage wealth and anticipate potential booms and busts.
Which colleges/universities did you apply to, and which did you get accepted to?
Claire applied to Early Decision Cornell 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. Claire 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 Claire, her project helped solidify her interest in computer science.
“Before taking the course, I knew I was already interested in computer science. As a current computer science major at Cornell, this course is the reason I chose AI to be my concentration for my major. This opportunity opened my eyes to how we can use artificial intelligence in tackling tough problems, making smart decisions, and driving innovation in different fields”
What has your college and career journey been like since you completed the AI Scholars program?
“Inspirit AI gave me a foundation to excel in advanced technical concepts and problem-solving. At Cornell, I am in high-level engineering and computer science courses such as Object Oriented Programming in Java and Data Structures, Programming in Python, Functional Programming, Discrete Structures, Digital Logic and Computer Organization, Linear Algebra, Multivariable Calculus, and Calc II, as well as other engineering courses. Inspirit AI gave me a foundation to excel in advanced technical concepts and problem-solving. Further, by listing my AI + Finance project on my resume, I landed a data analyst internship as a freshman and a software engineer internship as a sophomore at a FinTech company.”
What advice do you have for high school students applying to their dream colleges?
“To students who wish to attend a top school, instead of trying to pursue extracurriculars in many different interests and have a broad ‘well-rounded’ application, focus your energy on excelling in extracurriculars that revolve around one or two of your main interests and develop a ‘spike’ in your application. For example, if you are applying for a computer science major, instead of juggling extracurriculars in computer science and Spanish and history and business (etc), focus your energy on having a few REALLY impressive computer science extracurriculars. For me, part of my computer science spike was the AI + Finance project.”
For Claire, 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.
