The company’s product is an iPad application that teaches young students mental arithmetic calculations based on abacus and gamification concepts. As a software engineering intern, my main responsibilities were data analysis and working on the company’s artificial intelligence software. I spent half my internship collecting and analyzing data on student and multi-school achievements and the other half evaluating, testing, and helping to improve the company’s artificial intelligence software. My internship solidified my interest in artificial intelligence. While I am still open to explore various fields of computer science, I am excited for a potential career related to artificial intelligence. My internship also helped me gain confidence applying my technical skills in a real-world work environment and I am excited to bring the knowledge I learned into future positions.

A challenging aspect of the internship was the language barrier and immersion into a different culture. While I knew Japanese prior to my internship, it was a new experience to communicate using Japanese in a professional workplace and live in Japan. My improved Japanese language skills and deeper understanding of Japan’s culture have been rewarding aspects of my international internship experience.

During my time here I was a lab assistant in a microbiology lab. I mostly worked under a postdoc and Ph.D. student. It was under their guidance that I was able to expand my knowledge in microbiology and the scientific process. The project we were focusing on was astrobiology. Specifically, we were looking at how bacteria from Mars grow and survive in conditions similar to Mars. This is one of the first times that experiments have been conducted on bacteria collected from Saudi Arabia. The goal of our project was to see if these microbes could be used as model organisms for future astrobiological purposes.

The summer I have spent here at KAUST has been one of the best experiences of my academic career. I have learned a lot about myself and my future career goals. Over the course of the two months at KAUST, I completed 3 experiments (in the realm of academia, this is a lot for two months). The first one was one of the largest experiments that both the Ph.D. and postdoc have ever completed.

One of the reasons I decided to come to KAUST was to see if I enjoyed research and would want to peruse and career in academia. I was worried that I had an over-glorified idea of what the day-to-day life is like as a researcher. But after the heavy grind of this experiment, I can say that I don’t mind the tedious aspects of research.

I am also proud of the way I navigated and adapted to this new cultural experience. The campus itself at KAUST is very westernized, but I was still in Saudi Arabia. This kingdom had been heavily stigmatized in our media so I was very curious to experience it for myself. Within the first week of being here, I realized that a lot of the notions a came here with were nothing more than western prejudice. Of course, nowhere is perfect and this place is far from perfect, but I loved my time here. The people of Saudi are so incredibly nice and welcoming. Most of the friends I have made here are from Saudi, so this has been a great way to know the place better. I frequently left the KAUST campus to go the Jeddah or Thuwal, and they showed me the best places to eat and go in the area. Every weekend we were doing different activities like going to the Abha, boat trips, and private beaches in Jeddah. This was a great way to experience the culture here.

As I mentioned before, one of the reasons I chose this program was to see if a career in academia was something I liked and want to pursue. Both of my parents got a Ph.D. and were professors so this is something that I’ve wanted to do since a very young age. My parents have never glorified the world of academia and have been very honest with me about its difficulties. After my two months here I can say that I love the challenge that research provides and I can’t wait to keep learning. As of now, I am playing on coming back here to get my master’s degree and continue my career in academia.