With a loud bang, my mom rushes through the door and beelines to the kitchen. As the only adult in the house, she is solely responsible for dinner, rapidly chopping carrots and onions. I pause tinkering with my Lego roller coaster to help her wash and cut more vegetables, while she deftly assembles the ingredients into oxtail soup. With four hands, our mandatory family dinner is ready just in time before I’m whisked away to evening activities. As I...

I am fascinated how machines can learn to do and do to learn. When I visited the GRASP Labs this past summer, I was able to witness this artificial intelligence first hand as the UPennalizers research group’s robots learned how to walk and play soccer. But this learning philosophy doesn’t only apply to machines—it describes the entire academic environment. Meeting Dr. Daniel Lee, the faculty advisor of UPennalizers, I marveled at how students applied classroom theory to...

While working on expanding hackNEHS for a second run, I was dismayed when several past sponsors withdrew due to budget caps. Urgent to build long-lasting sponsor relationships, I enlisted an enthusiastic freshman—Lauren—to connect with technology companies, handing her my cold-emailing templates from last year. Although disheartened by a lack of responses, she was determined to keep trying, and I decided to work with her more closely. I introduced more effective strategies—networking through our school alumni coordinator and...