Our Summer Web-Based Institute for Technologies in CompSci and Healthcare (SWITCH) had a great start this week. It was such a wonderful opportunity to be able to meet, collaborate and share with educators who shared my passion for Computer Science Education.
The goal this week was to complete an informal literature review and be able to write and compile python code. We met (virtually) every day from 9:30 am – 11:00 am to discuss research readings and then spent two to three hours each day in tasks that would help us reach our weekly goal. During our morning meetings we also had visiting expert lectures which were quite insightful.
For example, did you know that every 30 seconds, one American will be diagnosed with Diabetes and another will suffer a coronary event?
Presentation on ML & Diabetes Research
Gerard Cote, Director of Paths-UP presented in detail, the work that the PATHS-UP program aims to achieve and how our program ties into influencing the next generation of innovators.
ML in Healthcare
Both Gerard and Souptik Barua spoke about how Machine Learning can impact the field of Healthcare, its present challenges and future opportunities. It was a gift to be able to learn about the Engineering Research Center and some of the research currently being conducted to positively impact the health of underserved populations in our country.
In the afternoon, I dedicated myself to learning about Python, primarily how it differs from Java, which I was already familiar with. I quickly found out that Python is very intuitive and has a user-friendly syntax, which explains why it’s a common entry point for many programmers!
I also read the articles for our informal literature review. It was truly impressive to learn about Computer Vision and am more fascinated than ever to learn more about it!
2 Responses to SWITCH RET 2020: Week 1