My Journey to HCDE

It would be untrue to say that I had always wanted to pursue a PhD in HCDE, because I had not heard of the program until very shortly before starting to work on PhD applications. At the time, in May 2018, I had only just completed my first semester of undergraduate research in HCI, another field about which I did not know much about prior to that semester. I was working on a project with Dr. Lana Yarosh, a professor at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities and had only just gotten past the learning curve of joining an existing project with a well-established code base.

When the summer began, I continued to work on the research project while also beginning to explore my options for schools and departments to apply for a PhD in. After having pursued a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science for the past three years, I knew that my area of interest definitely lay around that technical sphere. However, there was another side of mine that I had cultivated throughout my undergraduate years: my interest in writing. While pursuing a Minor in Creative Writing and holding a student position in the Center for Writing at the University of Minnesota, I realized that the writing side of my interests was also something I wanted to carry forward in a PhD program. Collectively, these two interests of equal importance to me made me realize that my best fit for programs would be those that are focused on interdisciplinary collaborations at the intersections of several diverse interests.

At that time, in what was later aptly described as a “fortunate coincidence” by a friend of mine, I was made aware of a talk that was scheduled in my university in the middle of July 2018. It was a talk being conducted by Dr. Cecilia Aragon from the University of Washington, a school that was definitely on my shortlist. Interested, I RSVP’d for the talk and began reading Dr. Aragon’s webpage and publications. I was amazed to learn about her work on a concept called “distributed mentoring”, but what really caught my eye was the fact that she used as her dataset the online writing platform Fanfiction.net. I was immediately interested in her work and got connected with her via email, indicating that I would like to briefly chat after her talk.

It was at this point that I landed on the HCDE page at the University of Washington, following a link from Dr. Aragon’s webpage. The vibe I got from reading the department’s webpage, their commitment to intersectionality of different views and the wide range of fascinating research being done by the faculty and students all combined to create a feeling where I could almost envision myself in the department. I began to read all the papers and project descriptions that I could find from HCDE as I engrossed myself in the department’s work.

A few days passed like this and finally, it was time for Dr. Aragon’s talk. I attentively listened as she spoke about her work in distributed mentoring with online fanfiction communities, captured in her book Writers in the Secret Garden. The contents of the talk confirmed my initial feelings of excitement as I realized that the qualitative aspect of the research focused on the writing in the various Fanfiction posts sampled. After the talk, as promised, she gave me a few minutes of her time as I expressed my interest in her work and encouraged me to stay in touch and apply for the program at HCDE. I left the venue of the talk fully convinced that HCDE and a PhD under Dr. Aragon’s mentorship would be the best fit for me.

The next few months were spent in the painful process of putting together the application package. I took the GRE, wrote thirteen drafts of my essays and gathered letters of recommendation, all while juggling senior year, work and student group leadership positions. Those were some of the most hectic months of my life, but I’m proud to say that I got through them having put my best foot forward in all of those sectors. As the application deadline passed by and I turned in my application, all that was left to do was wait.

Fast forward to January 30th, 2020, my 22nd birthday. I had initially decided to not go to any of my classes and take the day off, but later changed my mind and attended classes anyway. As I checked my phone after my afternoon class, I found a voicemail from an unknown number. To my great surprise, it was from Dr. Aragon herself! It was quite a brief message, where she had said that she could not reach me and gave me a window that she was available for me to call back. Unfortunately, the duration of my class was that the window had already expired by the time I had checked the message, so I wrote to her via email to set up a time to talk the next afternoon. Thus began 24 hours of anticipation for me, with me not knowing what she would have called me for. At the back of my mind, I knew that the only reason could have been a decision on my application, but I was not sure because I was not expecting it to be conveyed over the phone! I could hardly sleep that night and then, the next morning in my PE class, I was so nervous that I had a horrid game, dropping catches and getting yelled at by my teammates.

Finally, the time for the call back had arrived. I still remember not having good reception indoors, so I rushed out in the cold weather without a coat to answer the call as it came in. After a brief exchange of pleasantries, Dr. Aragon informed me that I had been accepted to the program! My knees began shaking as I could not process the many, many emotions going through my head. It took every ounce of willpower that I had to maintain a professional demeanor on the call as we spoke about the next steps, including official communication from the department. As the call ended, I knelt on the cold ground and burst into tears. Without doubt, that was one of the happiest moments of my life and, as I will always maintain, one of my best birthday surprises.

A few months later, after official communication and virtual visit days, I formally accepted the offer to join HCDE in pursuit of a PhD program. In the brief time that I have been here, I have found several reasons to justify my decision and altogether believe that I made the right decision in coming here. I am eager to go through the journey of acquiring a PhD and becoming a researcher in the field of Human Centered Data Science, with the support and guidance of the department and the wonderful people that make it up.