Instructor Aarohi Srivastava Uses Her Natural Love of Teaching to Fuel Her Passion of Making Machines Communicate Just as Beautifully as She Does
Aarohi Srivastava is a senior at Yale University, majoring in computer science. She is particularly interested in natural language processing, and how we can make AI systems that can naturally communicate with and understand humans.
What has been the highlight of your teaching experience with Inspirit AI?
“I’ve greatly enjoyed every part of my experience as an instructor for Inspirit AI. The highlight of my experience has definitely been interacting with our motivated students: in hearing their fresh perspectives, my point of view continues to broaden. Teaching is as much an educational experience for the instructor as it is for the students. With each cohort of students, the class dynamic and composition varied, the constant change a vibrant addition to an exciting summer. Finding new ways of explaining lecture and coding topics provided me with an even deeper understanding of such familiar material, and speculating about the most intuitive way for a student to grasp a challenging topic often unearthed thought-provoking secrets. I have always had a passion for teaching, but it was especially meaningful to have the opportunity to teach a program focused on artificial intelligence, my chosen field for future academic investigation and professional work.”
What advice would you give to young people who are interested in studying AI or pursuing a career in AI in the future?
“The Inspirit AI Summer Scholars Program takes students on a whirlwind tour of several fields of AI, including a few in-depth exploratory stops, so students are fully equipped to build on all that they’ve learned to continue their journey in AI. When we hear about artificial intelligence, it is often accompanied by a vast sea of applications. AI is indeed incredibly interdisciplinary, which means there is always room to explore AI no matter what your interests are. Through AI, we can learn about so many other disciplines, and it’s just as important to have a deep understanding of broad AI principles as it is to develop an appreciation for each new field you choose to use in your AI endeavors: the best work is never done in a vacuum. If you are passionate about another field, whether it be education, ethics, language, math, music, or something else, your work in AI will feel all the more exciting and meaningful.
In addition, it’s always important to build from strong foundations, and you’ll be able to reach even greater heights with a solid theoretical background (i.e., in computer science and math). It’s such a wonderful time to be in school, with so many self-teaching resources blossoming on the Internet, as well as the resurgence of many fields of AI in recent years, and I hope all our readers flourish in this age of AI education, exploration, and edification.”
