May 8, 2025 • 18 mins
The first of our four-part Spring 2025 commencement coverage kicks off with a conversation highlighting the STEM Valedictorian Nakul Mittal who shares his experiences attending RCBC and his passion for computer science which lead to a fascinating research project in the popular world of AI.
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Unknown (00:00):
Music. Welcome to the program. Pod, a national award
(00:04):
winning program on the rcbcPodcast Network which takes a
deep dive into the programsoffered at rcbc through
different perspectives ofstudents, faculty and employers.
Welcome back. It's been a while,actually, probably since the
last commencement, been a littlebusy taking care of the website.
It's Jay Varga, your fantasticaward winning host, which
actually, hey, we just gotanother second national award
(00:25):
for this program, pod, which wetalked to some students,
faculties, sometimes employersgoing into particular programs.
But the commencement coverage alittle bit more special. It's
the all culmination of to wherewe are and why we do what we do
here at rcbc, aka Rowan Collegeat Burlington County, as we are
gearing up for the spring 2025commencement, I have my
(00:46):
president award winner. I havemy valedictorians or getting
their speeches practicing andgetting them ready to get on the
stage and have the actualcommencement itself. And then
we'll, you know, hear them liveon the stage doing their
speeches. We'll hear from,hopefully, some students and
other people. But what we'redoing now is we're going to be
sitting down with one of ourstudent speakers, valedictorian,
Nakul Mittal, how are you howyou doing? Man, good, good,
(01:10):
yeah. How you feeling you? Areyou ready to go speak in front
of your peers? Yes,
I am. I feel very excited. Imean, like I was already
manifesting this day. And Istill remember the day I got my
email that I can be one of thespeaker. Yeah, I remember I told
my family about it, that I mightbe the speaker, and then getting
over here, like a week left tobe the speaker. Finally, yeah,
Jason Varga (01:32):
now it's all here, and speaker for the STEM class,
correct? Because that is whereyour major is, what? Computer
Science, okay? Computer sciencewhich, you know, that's
obviously a very, I love thatdegree, and something I kind of
wish I was kind of getting into,which I'll get to speak with you
at the student research stuff,which kind of work in some of
(01:52):
that computer science educationinto your your platform,
actually, once you talk aboutit. Now, since we are here, what
is, what was your studentresearch project? You want to
touch on that before I talkabout this. You know, the speech
part of everything,
Unknown (02:03):
so it's not completed yet, like it's still undergoing.
So it's not like it would bedone at a semester or something
would take a long time. Sobasically, we are using this
online platform, Name characterAI, building our own character
with the help of that. And rightnow, we are focusing on creating
two different character at themoment, which is, like the Vice
President, which we want to,like, implement in the rcbc in
(02:23):
the near future, that couldhelp, actually, students deal
with certain doubts, like hightuition fees, maybe, or maybe
they are confused with, whatsubject should they take in the
next upcoming semester, oranything like that. Okay, the
whole character, AI, he said,right, yeah, that's an online
platform. Even you can makeGoogle, make your own character
there. Maybe you can make afriend, not just any student.
Any student or something. Youcan make a friend, maybe some
(02:45):
celebrity or something likethat. Sure. Additionally, we are
also, like, looking forward tomake, like a professional
teacher assistant, whichactually teachers can implement
into the class. And we will bedoing this over this summer. I
know I'm graduating, but we'llbe still working on this project
entire summer. Dr Tate is thestem Dean my faculty is awesome.
Yep, yeah, he is. So he'll belike, recruiting two classes
(03:08):
with us, and those classes willbe implementing a project into
those classes where half of theclass will be doing the question
that the task that we will begiving to them with the help of
notebooks and textbook and thenotes they make in the class
sure if other half would bedoing with the help of AI that
we provide. Okay? So theultimate motive of creating this
thing is actually to find how AIcan be helpful. You know, like
(03:30):
aI being taken everywhere,right? You name it everywhere.
No everyday. New AI model isbeing launched. So it's really
risky, and it's kind of risk thefuture, because being a computer
science graduate, I myself use alot, maybe like I'm coding in
Python I and I found an errorearlier. Used to actually go
through my entire code line byline and actually try to look
where I get that in text errorfrom. But now I just copy paste
(03:52):
into chat GPT and get entirething done. Well, seen that a
lot. So, yeah. So we just wantedto make sure that professors
know what their students areusing, so the way they can use
our character model would bebetter for the professors,
because they know what they'reusing it, sure. And those
character models will be builtin such a way they don't get the
exact answers. They'll be giventhe steps how to actually do it,
(04:14):
yeah. So basically that thing,
Jason Varga (04:16):
you give me flashbacks from my coding, like
I have minimal coding days, morelike HTML, but when I was doing
stuff for my RSS feeds anduploading some of the my
original podcast was goingthrough RSS feeds and had to
hard code, you know, for iTunesXML files. And, you know, people
that are listening kind of,maybe we're getting a little too
deep for them, but I wouldeither pull, like, one a period
(04:37):
or a space would be missing,right? And he had to go line by
line. I'm like, where? Because Iwas copying and pasting my code,
right? But I'm changing out onelittle, like, like a URL, or,
like, mp three file orsomething, and that one little
space would wreck the wholecode, right? And then it went
sync up to iTunes, and thenyou're sitting there going
through that. But I have noticedsome some AI assistance now with
some of that coding and stufftoo, because it we're talking
(04:59):
all. Site when looking at yourStudent Resource project,
because I'm starting to use itjust for, like, landscaping
concepts, right? Dump yourthoughts into some of the AI and
stuff. But this, this characterassistant program you guys
working on, it's prettyincredible. Now, you said, Are
you, you know it's not, it's notgonna be available till at least
October. I think you weresaying, right? But you are. You
can still help, help them outthroughout the summer too. Well,
Unknown (05:19):
we are testing throughout the summer. Okay? So
while the research we have toconduct on humans, right, the
students, so we are waiting forthe IRB approval the entire
Research Board, okay? So as soonas we get that, we'll be
recruiting the classes and we'llstart implementing onto them,
because that's what we areassuming it will be helping us.
We're not sure that is what weare conducting the research
about. Okay, all
Jason Varga (05:38):
right, all right. Well, we're here. Let's flash
forward to, you know, that'sgonna be coming up down the
road, and you know, we'retalking about that to some
future STEM students, maybe somefuture valedictorian or
President award winners fortheir STEM class, maybe. But
you're here. What you know, whatmade you decide you wanted to go
speak in front of your class?Because I don't especially out
of STEM I always joke about it alittle more introverts, right?
(05:59):
Yeah, to go out there and speakin front of all your classmates
and stuff. What you know? Whydid you know? Why did you decide
to do and apply for it?
Unknown (06:05):
So when I first came to USA, I always knew in my back in
my mind that I don't want tomiss even a single opportunity I
can actually get to find outabout myself, okay. And I also
talk in my interview with when Iwas having it for this position,
that when I came to USA, I wasmore like an introvert kind of a
guy, and when you come to theUS, so USA, I landed on 24th of
(06:27):
August. 2023 I went to rider atthat time. Okay, so for a
semester with that rider, butthere I didn't had a lot of I
had friends, but all of themwere Indian, so I had my like
mother language, hindi withthem. So I was comfortable in
that, sure, but when I come toEnglish, I was more like an
introvert guy, because I don'tknow how to start or something
like that. I came to rcbc. Ijust had one Indian friends,
(06:47):
which kind of helped me out,because I started making friends
from other culture, otherbackgrounds, different
backgrounds. And then I shiftedtowards more towards an ambivert
kind of a guy. I started toexpress myself, maybe hang out
with them, talk to them, knowabout them, tell me myself about
to them, sure. So it kind ofmake me feel that. And I
remember, I didn't knew that Icould actually be one of the
(07:09):
speaker. But then I got a mail,as I mentioned, from Ashley,
that, hey, your GP is 3.5 above3.5 so you can you qualify?
Yeah. And I did a research aboutthem. I wrote, I wrote back to
it's a great opportunity, and Idid everything I could, and then
I filled the form. And I still,I didn't knew that permanent
Award and the speaker is thesame thing. But I did. Wrote to
(07:30):
Ashley about the permanent awardalso, and then she told me about
that those were the same thing.If you win the permanent award,
you are the speaker or viceversa. And then I knew, I mean,
I'm not missing thatopportunity, no matter what,
what. And also, since I'm aninternational student, I tried
my mom to get here for mygraduation, but all the visa
deadlines and all the delays ingetting rich, she couldn't come.
Yeah? So I felt like this couldbe a great opportunity to
(07:50):
actually show her that, yeah, Iam doing good with my studies,
with all the myths that studentgo out there and don't actually
study, but kind of go here andthere because you don't have the
like, take off your parents onyour head being an Indian, yeah,
right. So yeah, that is also, Ifeel like I could express myself
onto the stage, and maybe Icould motivate at least one or
two about my journey that Ifailed. I started from ground
(08:12):
zero. Yeah, I like, I didn'tstudy anything for like a year,
but still, I'm here, graduatingwith a great GPA, like, 4.2
Exactly. Yeah, so
Jason Varga (08:21):
she's able to watch you for the, you know, we have
the live YouTube extreme, yeah,not extreme, but live YouTube
stream, and, you know, turn tohave your speech and go
broadcast to the world, and thenit'll be archived, so she can
watch it all the time, saying,That's my son. I know that's
what my mom would be doing andstuff too. So, so obviously your
computer science, has that beenyour thing the whole time? You
(08:43):
always been a computer
Unknown (08:44):
guy? No, I was a kid, I was moved facili wasn't ready
for that. So I'll be honest,when I was, like, in second
grade, I wanted to be afootballer, okay? Because I
played really good.
Jason Varga (08:55):
Well, what kind of football is it from India? Okay,
yes, that's what I wouldclarify, yeah,
Unknown (09:02):
yep. But I grew up, I realized I am not that good.
Then I wanted to be a mechanicalengineer because I was
fascinated by the cars and stuffnice. But then I realized I grew
up, I realized I was notfascinated in building the car.
I was just fascinated by drivingthe expensive ones. Are we all?
Yeah. So to buy the expensiveone. You need money, right?
Yeah, right. And when I figuredout the easiest way to get money
(09:25):
is getting into computerscience, the only motive of my
coming into computer science isto get money, lot of money,
yeah, get my dream car, DreamHouse, build my own business
eventually. That's all
Jason Varga (09:36):
right, that's a great that's a great plan, right
there. Yeah, I played, uh,actually, I played American
soccer all the way up throughcollege and everything else,
even up until COVID. And then Iblew out my knee and ACL, PCL,
meniscus shred it all. And, youknow, planted my foot and I
turned my my foot stayed there.My knee just all popped, gave
out and stopped. But I'm like,Yeah, I think soccer, soccer is
(09:56):
over and stuff too. But I made adecision similar to yours when,
you know, when I was back in.Cool. It was, I was really into,
you know, radio broadcasting,hence, we're doing some podcast
stuff, right? But I was tryingto go into Philadelphia to go be
a, you know, on air, DJ andproducer and stuff too. But I
was trying to play soccer at thesame time, and I had to make
that sacrifice. And I'm like,and at the time, Philadelphia
(10:17):
didn't have, you know, the unionat the time, right for MLS,
right? If you really want to goplay soccer, you had to go to
Europe because, like, that's,you know, that's where the real
pros play, right? Like, that'sfootball, that's football like,
but I mean, I mean, I even knowI thought I was good and I was
fast and everything else too.There was always gonna be
someone faster or stronger orwhatever, too, and my chance is
gonna be greater to go be aprofessional soccer or football
(10:39):
player, right, or go into radiobroadcasting. So I had to
sacrifice more of the soccertime. I got more of the radio
club and went and did that. Soso I feel you on that, and then
hopefully, you know, you canjust go watch, and then I can
yell at people on the TV playingand doing that stuff, and play
this directly. But now that'sall over with. Now trying to
pass it on to my daughter, Iguess, and get her
Unknown (11:00):
No but I should play soccer. Sometimes. Remember, I
mentioned I find the rider.Yeah, we are crazy, you would
say, but during the time winter,I mean, like, we should play it
right now. Like, temperature isperfect to play football right
now, soccer right now, but weplay volleyball right now. But
during the entire winter, wewere playing soccer in the night
at Rider University, therefootball field. And it like we
(11:20):
started at 11pm in the night,and we played
until 2am and had that energyagain, more
like it was like temperaturecrisis. Because I remember the
the last day we played, it waslike really cold. The
temperature that day wasnegative seven degrees Celsius,
and it felt like negative 11degrees Celsius. And the reason
we stopped playing after thatbecause our ball went on the
(11:40):
riders Lake, and it wascompletely frozen, and it made a
definite army like, it's cold,yeah, that's
Jason Varga (11:45):
usually when people get hurt too. Those phones,
phones get a little more brittlethat way. But we could talk
soccer and or football, youknow, depending on where you're
from and what you'd like todescribe that and stuff too.
But, you know, we get some otherspeakers in here and still want
to highlight you, but, you know.So here you obviously came here
doing computer science. You'reon stage and stuff. What's, you
(12:06):
know, what was one of yourfavorite experiences here at
rcbc, maybe outside of thestudent research project that
you're working on?
Unknown (12:13):
The most favorite, the experience that I had was to be
the part of, you know, 2030 soit's like a un partner program.
Yep, it's like privately owned Idid to go. I will fan no one
knows, like very few knows aboutit, that when I applied for that
program, I thought was some oncampus job. You know, you can't
really work anywhere, so theonly place I can work is on
(12:34):
campus. Sure, I came to rcbc. Iopened my handshake, I wrote
rcbc In the search. Buteverything I saw apply, apply,
apply, apply. That's what I did.I got selected into that. I went
for my interview. I was drivingto the college. I was like five,
five minutes in my interview. Isat outside, I was waiting. I
opened my chat GPT, and wroteunit 2030 of course, you use
your chat YouTube, paper or GPT,yeah. So I wrote United 2013 it
(12:57):
gave me everything. And then Irealized it's not like any sort
of job or something. It's likemore of event, or maybe like a
place that I can attend. I wentfor my interview with it was
great. Erica, the ELB manager.She explained about it, so I got
to know more about that shortplace. And then I went for a
week over there. I would say itwas truly amazing. They were,
like, about 86 students. I mean,like other fellow people with
(13:18):
me, all were from differentcountry, like 86 children from
about 30 different countries. 30different countries were there.
They were great. And one thingthat I like moved that actually
changed my perspective. A bitearlier, I was more like
restaurant towards money, butthere I saw every single one.
None of them was running towardsthe money. They were actually
running towards helping thecommunity grow, towards making
(13:39):
the place better for living,yeah. So from there I had that
value in my mind back not muchlike, money still overpowers
everything, yep. But I stillknow that. I do know eventually,
if when I get a good chunk ofmoney, I want to contribute
something towards the Earth, ormaybe towards the people, to
help them out. Love hearingthat. Love
Jason Varga (13:56):
hearing that. And I'm glad, like, you got to
experience that, because youtake that little bit of
perspective with you. So that'sa that's a great experience
here. I'm glad experience here.I'm glad you found that through,
you know, here at rcbc. Sowhere's, what's next? Where you
going to ride your back, goingback to rider, course, gonna
play soccer over there? Yeah,when it's warm out, right?
Hopefully, yeah. So, and then, Iguess, after rider, like, do you
(14:20):
have, like, what's, you know,the five year plan, obviously,
it's big, get a big chunk ofmoney, go get a sports car and
stuff too. But, you know, isthere some kind of, like, legit
or not legit, like, specificcomputer science platform that
you want to do or Yes.
Unknown (14:33):
So after I want to start doing my job, save some
money, sure. And eventually Iwant to get into, like, my PhD
degree, either in AI orrobotics, AI being the hot
topic, that's the reason fornow, and robotics, something
that has always been fascinatingme. Those are the two things I'm
looking forward to. But I wantto do a PhD. Yeah, into it. I
don't want to go from masters,because I feel like that's not
(14:54):
waste of time. But it would be asmarter decision for me to do a
PhD, sure, because eventually.Be doing a Masters would take me
about two, two and a half years,and PhD could be done, like
doing a part time page, it wouldtake me about five years. But as
far as I know, leaving PhD inbetween at certain credits could
also about me. I'm after degree,yeah, so even if I'm not able to
finish due to the Time Crisis orlike masters schedule, I still
(15:16):
have my masters. Yeah,
Jason Varga (15:17):
no, that's great. And don't you know why you can.
But, you know, the good thingis, too is not being locked into
something, because who knows, inthe next couple years, like
technology obviously, is alwayschanging too, right? So you
don't know what's something thatnew and exciting that you it's
gonna draw your attention to forthat, and, you know, exploring
that, but computer science,computers, that's definitely
where it's at. So, but before wewrap it up, right? Because,
(15:39):
again, we're gonna get some ofthe other speakers in here, and
we're doing our stories. Thiswas this commencement week and
leading up here for spring 2025commencement at rcbc. But you
know, can you give us, like, alittle bit, not we say, like in
radio, like a teaser orsomething like that, like you're
speaking to your fellowclassmates. If there's one
important message you want toshare with your fellow
(15:59):
classmates, or all thosegraduating for 2025 What would
you like to say to them?
Unknown (16:04):
So I would like to, I always say this to inspire
everyone out it's not mine. Iread somewhere, so I'll give
that example to you, like to theeveryone. So imagine you all are
like having $86,400 with you,and you suddenly laughed about
like you were walking onto a NewYork street and someone stole
about, like, $200 from you. Willyou be mad, like, for losing the
$200 will you no Exactly Sosimilarly, in a day, we are
(16:27):
having about 86,400 seconds, andoften, not often, like, every
time I would say, even Isometimes maybe, like, I would
have a bad day, or, like, aminute up to maybe got a bad
news, or something like that. Iwould like ruin my entire day
for that. So where I was losing$200 I still have $86,200 I was
(16:49):
happy about it, right? I didn'tlost all of it exactly in a
life. If we are losing about 60seconds, 120 seconds, or maybe
600 seconds, we should not ruinour remaining 80,000 seconds, or
whatsoever time is left. So thatis one thing, and giving up is
not who we are. To be honest,even if you failed, you you are
you are meant to fail to learnsomething. Yes,
Jason Varga (17:09):
I'm a hardcore believer in that needs to teach
my students all the time when Iwas teaching here, and it was
something that was passed on tome, don't be afraid to fail,
right?
Unknown (17:16):
Exactly. I mean failure. You don't learn until
you fail, because if you'regonna get everything in the
first go, I mean, you won't havea value of it. I feel like my
visa would have been approved inthe first attempt when I applied
for rcbc on like November one. Idon't think I would be sitting
here, because my life would becompletely different. Everything
has a reason to happen.Everything have time when it
comes and it will come for you.You have to just keep working
(17:38):
for it. So that's what it is.
Jason Varga (17:40):
I love it. I love it. And one last thing, I
literally just noticed you'rewearing a Cardinals hat, St
Louis, Cardinals right there uptop. Your fan, just like the
logo. My
Unknown (17:50):
sister gifted me. She went daily night, and she gifted
me this out, and I was happy.Okay, I also reveal one thing
out. It's my birthday today. Oh,hey, happy birthday. Thank you.
Thank you. So I just was lookingfor my outfit, and I had this
white shirt, so, like, white capwould go with
Jason Varga (18:02):
Yeah, yeah, you're like me and matching the outfits
and everything else. But we gotto get you some Phillies gear.
Which rumor has it? There'sgonna be something Phillies
related going on here at ourcommencement too. So we're gonna
stay tuned find out for that.But again, cool. You know,
Congratulations on yourachievements here. You know it's
great to see. I'm wishing younothing but the best in the next
chapters and everything else. Iknow you're gonna go out there
and crush it. I'm looking forcrush it. I'm looking forward to
(18:24):
seeing how this AI platformworks out for you guys with this
character stuff kind of going ontoo. So we want to say hi to
mom, too, by the way, whileyou're here. Yeah, good.
Unknown (18:32):
Hey Mom, thank you. Thank you for always supporting
me. I know you would belistening to it. You would
understand you're not good inEnglish, but I know my sister
would explain you everything outyou
Jason Varga (18:40):
say in your
Unknown (18:43):
language, if you like, Thank you. I'll always make sure
I make you feel proud. Thank
Jason Varga (18:47):
you. There you go. Awesome stuff. All right, cool
again. Congrats, and lookingforward to, you know, hearing
you up on the big stage.
Unknown (18:54):
Yep, definitely. All right, definitely, all right.
Good job. You.
Music. Welcome to the program. Pod, a national award
(00:04):
winning program on the rcbcPodcast Network which takes a
deep dive into the programsoffered at rcbc through
different perspectives ofstudents, faculty and employers.
Welcome back. It's been a while,actually, probably since the
last commencement, been a littlebusy taking care of the website.
It's Jay Varga, your fantasticaward winning host, which
actually, hey, we just gotanother second national award
(00:25):
for this program, pod, which wetalked to some students,
faculties, sometimes employersgoing into particular programs.
But the commencement coverage alittle bit more special. It's
the all culmination of to wherewe are and why we do what we do
here at rcbc, aka Rowan Collegeat Burlington County, as we are
gearing up for the spring 2025commencement, I have my
(00:46):
president award winner. I havemy valedictorians or getting
their speeches practicing andgetting them ready to get on the
stage and have the actualcommencement itself. And then
we'll, you know, hear them liveon the stage doing their
speeches. We'll hear from,hopefully, some students and
other people. But what we'redoing now is we're going to be
sitting down with one of ourstudent speakers, valedictorian,
Nakul Mittal, how are you howyou doing? Man, good, good,
(01:10):
yeah. How you feeling you? Areyou ready to go speak in front
of your peers? Yes,
I am. I feel very excited. Imean, like I was already
manifesting this day. And Istill remember the day I got my
email that I can be one of thespeaker. Yeah, I remember I told
my family about it, that I mightbe the speaker, and then getting
over here, like a week left tobe the speaker. Finally, yeah,
Jason Varga (01:32):
now it's all here, and speaker for the STEM class,
correct? Because that is whereyour major is, what? Computer
Science, okay? Computer sciencewhich, you know, that's
obviously a very, I love thatdegree, and something I kind of
wish I was kind of getting into,which I'll get to speak with you
at the student research stuff,which kind of work in some of
(01:52):
that computer science educationinto your your platform,
actually, once you talk aboutit. Now, since we are here, what
is, what was your studentresearch project? You want to
touch on that before I talkabout this. You know, the speech
part of everything,
Unknown (02:03):
so it's not completed yet, like it's still undergoing.
So it's not like it would bedone at a semester or something
would take a long time. Sobasically, we are using this
online platform, Name characterAI, building our own character
with the help of that. And rightnow, we are focusing on creating
two different character at themoment, which is, like the Vice
President, which we want to,like, implement in the rcbc in
(02:23):
the near future, that couldhelp, actually, students deal
with certain doubts, like hightuition fees, maybe, or maybe
they are confused with, whatsubject should they take in the
next upcoming semester, oranything like that. Okay, the
whole character, AI, he said,right, yeah, that's an online
platform. Even you can makeGoogle, make your own character
there. Maybe you can make afriend, not just any student.
Any student or something. Youcan make a friend, maybe some
(02:45):
celebrity or something likethat. Sure. Additionally, we are
also, like, looking forward tomake, like a professional
teacher assistant, whichactually teachers can implement
into the class. And we will bedoing this over this summer. I
know I'm graduating, but we'llbe still working on this project
entire summer. Dr Tate is thestem Dean my faculty is awesome.
Yep, yeah, he is. So he'll belike, recruiting two classes
(03:08):
with us, and those classes willbe implementing a project into
those classes where half of theclass will be doing the question
that the task that we will begiving to them with the help of
notebooks and textbook and thenotes they make in the class
sure if other half would bedoing with the help of AI that
we provide. Okay? So theultimate motive of creating this
thing is actually to find how AIcan be helpful. You know, like
(03:30):
aI being taken everywhere,right? You name it everywhere.
No everyday. New AI model isbeing launched. So it's really
risky, and it's kind of risk thefuture, because being a computer
science graduate, I myself use alot, maybe like I'm coding in
Python I and I found an errorearlier. Used to actually go
through my entire code line byline and actually try to look
where I get that in text errorfrom. But now I just copy paste
(03:52):
into chat GPT and get entirething done. Well, seen that a
lot. So, yeah. So we just wantedto make sure that professors
know what their students areusing, so the way they can use
our character model would bebetter for the professors,
because they know what they'reusing it, sure. And those
character models will be builtin such a way they don't get the
exact answers. They'll be giventhe steps how to actually do it,
(04:14):
yeah. So basically that thing,
Jason Varga (04:16):
you give me flashbacks from my coding, like
I have minimal coding days, morelike HTML, but when I was doing
stuff for my RSS feeds anduploading some of the my
original podcast was goingthrough RSS feeds and had to
hard code, you know, for iTunesXML files. And, you know, people
that are listening kind of,maybe we're getting a little too
deep for them, but I wouldeither pull, like, one a period
(04:37):
or a space would be missing,right? And he had to go line by
line. I'm like, where? Because Iwas copying and pasting my code,
right? But I'm changing out onelittle, like, like a URL, or,
like, mp three file orsomething, and that one little
space would wreck the wholecode, right? And then it went
sync up to iTunes, and thenyou're sitting there going
through that. But I have noticedsome some AI assistance now with
some of that coding and stufftoo, because it we're talking
(04:59):
all. Site when looking at yourStudent Resource project,
because I'm starting to use itjust for, like, landscaping
concepts, right? Dump yourthoughts into some of the AI and
stuff. But this, this characterassistant program you guys
working on, it's prettyincredible. Now, you said, Are
you, you know it's not, it's notgonna be available till at least
October. I think you weresaying, right? But you are. You
can still help, help them outthroughout the summer too. Well,
Unknown (05:19):
we are testing throughout the summer. Okay? So
while the research we have toconduct on humans, right, the
students, so we are waiting forthe IRB approval the entire
Research Board, okay? So as soonas we get that, we'll be
recruiting the classes and we'llstart implementing onto them,
because that's what we areassuming it will be helping us.
We're not sure that is what weare conducting the research
about. Okay, all
Jason Varga (05:38):
right, all right. Well, we're here. Let's flash
forward to, you know, that'sgonna be coming up down the
road, and you know, we'retalking about that to some
future STEM students, maybe somefuture valedictorian or
President award winners fortheir STEM class, maybe. But
you're here. What you know, whatmade you decide you wanted to go
speak in front of your class?Because I don't especially out
of STEM I always joke about it alittle more introverts, right?
(05:59):
Yeah, to go out there and speakin front of all your classmates
and stuff. What you know? Whydid you know? Why did you decide
to do and apply for it?
Unknown (06:05):
So when I first came to USA, I always knew in my back in
my mind that I don't want tomiss even a single opportunity I
can actually get to find outabout myself, okay. And I also
talk in my interview with when Iwas having it for this position,
that when I came to USA, I wasmore like an introvert kind of a
guy, and when you come to theUS, so USA, I landed on 24th of
(06:27):
August. 2023 I went to rider atthat time. Okay, so for a
semester with that rider, butthere I didn't had a lot of I
had friends, but all of themwere Indian, so I had my like
mother language, hindi withthem. So I was comfortable in
that, sure, but when I come toEnglish, I was more like an
introvert guy, because I don'tknow how to start or something
like that. I came to rcbc. Ijust had one Indian friends,
(06:47):
which kind of helped me out,because I started making friends
from other culture, otherbackgrounds, different
backgrounds. And then I shiftedtowards more towards an ambivert
kind of a guy. I started toexpress myself, maybe hang out
with them, talk to them, knowabout them, tell me myself about
to them, sure. So it kind ofmake me feel that. And I
remember, I didn't knew that Icould actually be one of the
(07:09):
speaker. But then I got a mail,as I mentioned, from Ashley,
that, hey, your GP is 3.5 above3.5 so you can you qualify?
Yeah. And I did a research aboutthem. I wrote, I wrote back to
it's a great opportunity, and Idid everything I could, and then
I filled the form. And I still,I didn't knew that permanent
Award and the speaker is thesame thing. But I did. Wrote to
(07:30):
Ashley about the permanent awardalso, and then she told me about
that those were the same thing.If you win the permanent award,
you are the speaker or viceversa. And then I knew, I mean,
I'm not missing thatopportunity, no matter what,
what. And also, since I'm aninternational student, I tried
my mom to get here for mygraduation, but all the visa
deadlines and all the delays ingetting rich, she couldn't come.
Yeah? So I felt like this couldbe a great opportunity to
(07:50):
actually show her that, yeah, Iam doing good with my studies,
with all the myths that studentgo out there and don't actually
study, but kind of go here andthere because you don't have the
like, take off your parents onyour head being an Indian, yeah,
right. So yeah, that is also, Ifeel like I could express myself
onto the stage, and maybe Icould motivate at least one or
two about my journey that Ifailed. I started from ground
(08:12):
zero. Yeah, I like, I didn'tstudy anything for like a year,
but still, I'm here, graduatingwith a great GPA, like, 4.2
Exactly. Yeah, so
Jason Varga (08:21):
she's able to watch you for the, you know, we have
the live YouTube extreme, yeah,not extreme, but live YouTube
stream, and, you know, turn tohave your speech and go
broadcast to the world, and thenit'll be archived, so she can
watch it all the time, saying,That's my son. I know that's
what my mom would be doing andstuff too. So, so obviously your
computer science, has that beenyour thing the whole time? You
(08:43):
always been a computer
Unknown (08:44):
guy? No, I was a kid, I was moved facili wasn't ready
for that. So I'll be honest,when I was, like, in second
grade, I wanted to be afootballer, okay? Because I
played really good.
Jason Varga (08:55):
Well, what kind of football is it from India? Okay,
yes, that's what I wouldclarify, yeah,
Unknown (09:02):
yep. But I grew up, I realized I am not that good.
Then I wanted to be a mechanicalengineer because I was
fascinated by the cars and stuffnice. But then I realized I grew
up, I realized I was notfascinated in building the car.
I was just fascinated by drivingthe expensive ones. Are we all?
Yeah. So to buy the expensiveone. You need money, right?
Yeah, right. And when I figuredout the easiest way to get money
(09:25):
is getting into computerscience, the only motive of my
coming into computer science isto get money, lot of money,
yeah, get my dream car, DreamHouse, build my own business
eventually. That's all
Jason Varga (09:36):
right, that's a great that's a great plan, right
there. Yeah, I played, uh,actually, I played American
soccer all the way up throughcollege and everything else,
even up until COVID. And then Iblew out my knee and ACL, PCL,
meniscus shred it all. And, youknow, planted my foot and I
turned my my foot stayed there.My knee just all popped, gave
out and stopped. But I'm like,Yeah, I think soccer, soccer is
(09:56):
over and stuff too. But I made adecision similar to yours when,
you know, when I was back in.Cool. It was, I was really into,
you know, radio broadcasting,hence, we're doing some podcast
stuff, right? But I was tryingto go into Philadelphia to go be
a, you know, on air, DJ andproducer and stuff too. But I
was trying to play soccer at thesame time, and I had to make
that sacrifice. And I'm like,and at the time, Philadelphia
(10:17):
didn't have, you know, the unionat the time, right for MLS,
right? If you really want to goplay soccer, you had to go to
Europe because, like, that's,you know, that's where the real
pros play, right? Like, that'sfootball, that's football like,
but I mean, I mean, I even knowI thought I was good and I was
fast and everything else too.There was always gonna be
someone faster or stronger orwhatever, too, and my chance is
gonna be greater to go be aprofessional soccer or football
(10:39):
player, right, or go into radiobroadcasting. So I had to
sacrifice more of the soccertime. I got more of the radio
club and went and did that. Soso I feel you on that, and then
hopefully, you know, you canjust go watch, and then I can
yell at people on the TV playingand doing that stuff, and play
this directly. But now that'sall over with. Now trying to
pass it on to my daughter, Iguess, and get her
Unknown (11:00):
No but I should play soccer. Sometimes. Remember, I
mentioned I find the rider.Yeah, we are crazy, you would
say, but during the time winter,I mean, like, we should play it
right now. Like, temperature isperfect to play football right
now, soccer right now, but weplay volleyball right now. But
during the entire winter, wewere playing soccer in the night
at Rider University, therefootball field. And it like we
(11:20):
started at 11pm in the night,and we played
until 2am and had that energyagain, more
like it was like temperaturecrisis. Because I remember the
the last day we played, it waslike really cold. The
temperature that day wasnegative seven degrees Celsius,
and it felt like negative 11degrees Celsius. And the reason
we stopped playing after thatbecause our ball went on the
(11:40):
riders Lake, and it wascompletely frozen, and it made a
definite army like, it's cold,yeah, that's
Jason Varga (11:45):
usually when people get hurt too. Those phones,
phones get a little more brittlethat way. But we could talk
soccer and or football, youknow, depending on where you're
from and what you'd like todescribe that and stuff too.
But, you know, we get some otherspeakers in here and still want
to highlight you, but, you know.So here you obviously came here
doing computer science. You'reon stage and stuff. What's, you
(12:06):
know, what was one of yourfavorite experiences here at
rcbc, maybe outside of thestudent research project that
you're working on?
Unknown (12:13):
The most favorite, the experience that I had was to be
the part of, you know, 2030 soit's like a un partner program.
Yep, it's like privately owned Idid to go. I will fan no one
knows, like very few knows aboutit, that when I applied for that
program, I thought was some oncampus job. You know, you can't
really work anywhere, so theonly place I can work is on
(12:34):
campus. Sure, I came to rcbc. Iopened my handshake, I wrote
rcbc In the search. Buteverything I saw apply, apply,
apply, apply. That's what I did.I got selected into that. I went
for my interview. I was drivingto the college. I was like five,
five minutes in my interview. Isat outside, I was waiting. I
opened my chat GPT, and wroteunit 2030 of course, you use
your chat YouTube, paper or GPT,yeah. So I wrote United 2013 it
(12:57):
gave me everything. And then Irealized it's not like any sort
of job or something. It's likemore of event, or maybe like a
place that I can attend. I wentfor my interview with it was
great. Erica, the ELB manager.She explained about it, so I got
to know more about that shortplace. And then I went for a
week over there. I would say itwas truly amazing. They were,
like, about 86 students. I mean,like other fellow people with
(13:18):
me, all were from differentcountry, like 86 children from
about 30 different countries. 30different countries were there.
They were great. And one thingthat I like moved that actually
changed my perspective. A bitearlier, I was more like
restaurant towards money, butthere I saw every single one.
None of them was running towardsthe money. They were actually
running towards helping thecommunity grow, towards making
(13:39):
the place better for living,yeah. So from there I had that
value in my mind back not muchlike, money still overpowers
everything, yep. But I stillknow that. I do know eventually,
if when I get a good chunk ofmoney, I want to contribute
something towards the Earth, ormaybe towards the people, to
help them out. Love hearingthat. Love
Jason Varga (13:56):
hearing that. And I'm glad, like, you got to
experience that, because youtake that little bit of
perspective with you. So that'sa that's a great experience
here. I'm glad experience here.I'm glad you found that through,
you know, here at rcbc. Sowhere's, what's next? Where you
going to ride your back, goingback to rider, course, gonna
play soccer over there? Yeah,when it's warm out, right?
Hopefully, yeah. So, and then, Iguess, after rider, like, do you
(14:20):
have, like, what's, you know,the five year plan, obviously,
it's big, get a big chunk ofmoney, go get a sports car and
stuff too. But, you know, isthere some kind of, like, legit
or not legit, like, specificcomputer science platform that
you want to do or Yes.
Unknown (14:33):
So after I want to start doing my job, save some
money, sure. And eventually Iwant to get into, like, my PhD
degree, either in AI orrobotics, AI being the hot
topic, that's the reason fornow, and robotics, something
that has always been fascinatingme. Those are the two things I'm
looking forward to. But I wantto do a PhD. Yeah, into it. I
don't want to go from masters,because I feel like that's not
(14:54):
waste of time. But it would be asmarter decision for me to do a
PhD, sure, because eventually.Be doing a Masters would take me
about two, two and a half years,and PhD could be done, like
doing a part time page, it wouldtake me about five years. But as
far as I know, leaving PhD inbetween at certain credits could
also about me. I'm after degree,yeah, so even if I'm not able to
finish due to the Time Crisis orlike masters schedule, I still
(15:16):
have my masters. Yeah,
Jason Varga (15:17):
no, that's great. And don't you know why you can.
But, you know, the good thingis, too is not being locked into
something, because who knows, inthe next couple years, like
technology obviously, is alwayschanging too, right? So you
don't know what's something thatnew and exciting that you it's
gonna draw your attention to forthat, and, you know, exploring
that, but computer science,computers, that's definitely
where it's at. So, but before wewrap it up, right? Because,
(15:39):
again, we're gonna get some ofthe other speakers in here, and
we're doing our stories. Thiswas this commencement week and
leading up here for spring 2025commencement at rcbc. But you
know, can you give us, like, alittle bit, not we say, like in
radio, like a teaser orsomething like that, like you're
speaking to your fellowclassmates. If there's one
important message you want toshare with your fellow
(15:59):
classmates, or all thosegraduating for 2025 What would
you like to say to them?
Unknown (16:04):
So I would like to, I always say this to inspire
everyone out it's not mine. Iread somewhere, so I'll give
that example to you, like to theeveryone. So imagine you all are
like having $86,400 with you,and you suddenly laughed about
like you were walking onto a NewYork street and someone stole
about, like, $200 from you. Willyou be mad, like, for losing the
$200 will you no Exactly Sosimilarly, in a day, we are
(16:27):
having about 86,400 seconds, andoften, not often, like, every
time I would say, even Isometimes maybe, like, I would
have a bad day, or, like, aminute up to maybe got a bad
news, or something like that. Iwould like ruin my entire day
for that. So where I was losing$200 I still have $86,200 I was
(16:49):
happy about it, right? I didn'tlost all of it exactly in a
life. If we are losing about 60seconds, 120 seconds, or maybe
600 seconds, we should not ruinour remaining 80,000 seconds, or
whatsoever time is left. So thatis one thing, and giving up is
not who we are. To be honest,even if you failed, you you are
you are meant to fail to learnsomething. Yes,
Jason Varga (17:09):
I'm a hardcore believer in that needs to teach
my students all the time when Iwas teaching here, and it was
something that was passed on tome, don't be afraid to fail,
right?
Unknown (17:16):
Exactly. I mean failure. You don't learn until
you fail, because if you'regonna get everything in the
first go, I mean, you won't havea value of it. I feel like my
visa would have been approved inthe first attempt when I applied
for rcbc on like November one. Idon't think I would be sitting
here, because my life would becompletely different. Everything
has a reason to happen.Everything have time when it
comes and it will come for you.You have to just keep working
(17:38):
for it. So that's what it is.
Jason Varga (17:40):
I love it. I love it. And one last thing, I
literally just noticed you'rewearing a Cardinals hat, St
Louis, Cardinals right there uptop. Your fan, just like the
logo. My
Unknown (17:50):
sister gifted me. She went daily night, and she gifted
me this out, and I was happy.Okay, I also reveal one thing
out. It's my birthday today. Oh,hey, happy birthday. Thank you.
Thank you. So I just was lookingfor my outfit, and I had this
white shirt, so, like, white capwould go with
Jason Varga (18:02):
Yeah, yeah, you're like me and matching the outfits
and everything else. But we gotto get you some Phillies gear.
Which rumor has it? There'sgonna be something Phillies
related going on here at ourcommencement too. So we're gonna
stay tuned find out for that.But again, cool. You know,
Congratulations on yourachievements here. You know it's
great to see. I'm wishing younothing but the best in the next
chapters and everything else. Iknow you're gonna go out there
and crush it. I'm looking forcrush it. I'm looking forward to
(18:24):
seeing how this AI platformworks out for you guys with this
character stuff kind of going ontoo. So we want to say hi to
mom, too, by the way, whileyou're here. Yeah, good.
Unknown (18:32):
Hey Mom, thank you. Thank you for always supporting
me. I know you would belistening to it. You would
understand you're not good inEnglish, but I know my sister
would explain you everything outyou
Jason Varga (18:40):
say in your
Unknown (18:43):
language, if you like, Thank you. I'll always make sure
I make you feel proud. Thank
Jason Varga (18:47):
you. There you go. Awesome stuff. All right, cool
again. Congrats, and lookingforward to, you know, hearing
you up on the big stage.
Unknown (18:54):
Yep, definitely. All right, definitely, all right.
Good job. You.
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