From the course: DJ Patil: Ask Me Anything
How did you navigate college?
From the course: DJ Patil: Ask Me Anything
How did you navigate college?
(upbeat music) - [Interviewer] All right, but how do you go from high school suspendee to community college to chief data scientist of the United States? - Well, so the big one that happened was, it was a real big shake-up moment when I couldn't get into a traditional college, and it was a moment of that sort of, you know, well, everyone else is doing this, why aren't I doing this? I was very fortunate that we had a great community college, De Anza College, just down the street. And I was able to walk there, and I had been taking classes there. And just during the summers. And it was awesome. I also had the good fortune, my girlfriend at the time was going to De Anza, so I went there. And I took the same classes as she did, and the first set of classes I took were these English classes. And oh my gosh did they kick my butt. I mean, they kicked my butt in every awesome way. My quality of writing was terrible, but my quality of thinking wasn't strong enough. And forcing to write down your ideas, and for someone at the community college level to work with you in this close proximity and detail, leveled me up in an incredible way. I wasn't some kid writing in a class of 500 or 1,000 people. I was a kid writing and a professor saying, have you thought about it this way? And pushing and challenging me. So I was getting almost this one-to-one kind of tutorial that allowed me to go from being this bottom of the class person to just being elevated so quickly. And I took this back-to-back English classes where I just got my head just kicked constantly by these people in the most loving way. And they upgraded me. And then the next thing that happened was my girlfriend took this class called Calculus, so I took this class called Calculus. Seemed like a good idea at the time. And I literally went in there and I didn't know anything. I was just like, holy crap. I just don't know any of this. And it was this defining moment of, what kind of person do I wanna be? Do I wanna be the person that can't figure this out, or do I have to be the person that goes and does figure it out? So I went to the local library, Cupertino Library, which is an amazing library. And I checked out all the math books that I could, and taught myself high school math over a few days, which you can't imagine something more frustrating than having failed all your classes and you're just like, oh, I could just learn it on my own. But now I was motivated, I was motivated. And I took it, and the teacher at the time, Holly Hake, you know, I just was working on problem after problem and I'd go to her and she'd explain stuff, and she helped me see the beauty in these problems. The incredible beauty that was happening in there. And I just fell in love with it. I had to fight my way into getting into a role at University of California San Diego, and even there, I had amazing mentors. I had amazing people who were able to look out for me. George Sugihara, who's one of the luminaries in the field. Brad Warner, uh, Reggie Brown, these are people who are at the front edge of something called chaos theory. And I was working in their labs and I was just spending every ounce of energy that I could take. I took every class that I could, not just the liberal arts classes, but the sciences. There was one time where your normal, I think the normal course load is like four classes, and so I was doing eight plus classes. And I just had this view of like, what a cherished opportunity is it that you get to go to an institution where the whole focus is to put ideas into your head. And so I wanted to take every ounce of that. And so I was not, I was the social boring person. I'd study on Friday nights, I'd study on Saturday nights, 'cause maybe I was making up for lost time. (upbeat music)
Contents
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What were you like as a kid?3m 17s
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How did your parents influence you?1m 55s
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How did you navigate college?4m 7s
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What are some fond memories from grad school?2m 45s
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How can we foster learning for everyone?5m 9s
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What's the importance of learning liberal arts?2m 30s
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What advice do you have for job seekers?3m 23s
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How did data science come about?4m 8s
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What does it take to be a data scientist?4m 1s
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Why is apprenticeship important?3m 41s
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How can a data scientist influence policy?2m 20s
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How can I prepare for data science in college?4m 56s
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How can hackathons benefit me?1m 30s
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How did you use data in grad school?2m 15s
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How is data used in the US?3m 55s
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How is data used worldwide?1m 38s
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How do you expose holes in cybersecurity?3m 32s
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How can we educate people about hacking?2m 30s
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What are the real threats to personal data?4m 6s
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Should we focus on media headlines?1m 39s
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How can we educate people about data use?3m 34s
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How can people fight for data privacy?2m 46s
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What's the role of the data scientist in 15 years?4m 30s
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What are you working on currently?3m 31s
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How can we make data secure?3m 26s
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How to serve the people with data science?1m 47s
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What's the difference between wisdom and experience?1m 54s
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How do you advocate for science?2m 3s
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What is the role of AI in today's world?2m 54s
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What's an example of ethical hacking?2m 9s
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How do you bring data science into the workplace?2m 29s
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What is the role of AI in human resources and recruiting?3m 3s
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What are tools every data scientist should own?2m 44s
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Is there a data science code of ethics?4m 6s
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What are AI threats in the cybersecurity world?4m 38s
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How can data scientists better inform the general public?1m 30s
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How can people participate in data science?2m 31s
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Why do people fear a machine revolution?2m 18s
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How can data inform healthcare?1m 31s
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Why should we democratize data?2m 14s
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How are you advocating for science?3m 9s
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Why is the march for science important?3m 42s
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What is AI?1m 37s
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What is an example of robust machine learning?4m 31s
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What is AI's place in healthcare?3m 29s
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How can AI impact clinical trials?3m 22s
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How can a data scientist be best leveraged for business?1m 28s
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What does a data science team need to thrive?2m 56s
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What are the pros and cons with AI in HR roles?3m 27s
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What should be in a data scientist's toolbox?3m 23s
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What makes up a good data science team?2m 3s
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What new projects are you working on?2m 51s
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What data science projects are you working on?1m 40s
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How can AI and machine learning (ML) help cybersecurity?3m 54s
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How can governments fight back against AI attacks?3m 5s
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What can the public do to protect against AI attacks?1m 14s
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What are neural networks (NN)?2m 8s
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What's the difference between ML and NN?1m 42s
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Do you have a favorite machine learning technique?1m 7s
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How does the Internet of Things work?1m 38s
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What is a connected city?3m 3s
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What is the fear associated with data?2m 30s
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How can we address the fear of machines taking jobs?3m 20s
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What about job loss due to AI?1m 43s
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What's the reality of bringing back jobs?1m 50s
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What is a scientific process for data science?2m 46s
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What is your tip for not getting overwhelmed by big data?1m 40s
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How do you accept that you're not going to know stuff?2m 38s
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What is a dynamic range?2m 1s
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When does data leave holes?3m 8s
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How important is diversity on a data science team?2m 13s
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How does data influence people's emotions?4m 15s
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How do you train yourself to be intellectually curious?2m 20s
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How do we empower people to foster dialogue?3m 33s
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What is your philosophy on leadership?2m 56s
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How can a company retain employees?3m 42s
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How do you cultivate employee development?3m 18s
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How do you identify algorithmic biases?2m 46s
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Can you describe the process of ethical testing?2m 46s
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How do you feel about machine learning for business decisions?1m 52s
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Can you talk about your book?4m 10s
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What are possible solutions for displacement?2m 23s
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What impact does technology have on the US economy?3m 2s
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Can you discuss the future of intelligent things?3m 26s
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What are the current issues with data collection?2m 10s
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How is technology changing human expectations?1m 7s
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Wrapping up1m 5s
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