Speeding past Donkey Kong, I was in the lead. As I neared the finish line, Bowser slammed his cart into mine, sending me off course. I frantically pushed the buttons, trying to regain control when my dad interrupted my game of Mario Kart. “Time’s up!” he yelled. Ever since I got a Nintendo DS, my dad only let me use it during holidays. Afterwards, I had to put it back in a bag before he hid it in his...

I hope to pursue my interests in computer science, government, and business. Columbia openly encourages such breadth of study, and I want to learn from its renowned professors in all those fields as well as take part in the Engineering Student Council and promote Student Enterprises. I discovered that Columbia’s strength in NLP (Natural Language Processing) would allow me to research in machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). After Yahoo first released its summarization app News Digest, I was...

I love Hawaiian culture. Since my uncle lives in Hawaii, I go there with my family every winter break. It’s only natural that I now prefer Hawaiian pizza over Pepperoni pizza and water slides over rollercoasters. The best way I can spread my zeal is joining Mālama Hawaiʻi at Columbia. While Mālama Hawaiʻi has mostly focused on teaching the Hula dance (really, really fun) and transitioning life from Hawaii to New York, I want to...