Core Stories
01 - Showed a Leadership
In my last year of high school in Ukraine, I participated as team captain in a national software engineering team competition, which was held entirely over Zoom due to the war. Our team of five was spread across Poland, Germany, Sweden, the UK, and the US, making as to work with three different time zones. After passing the first few stages, we advanced to the national stage against 15 other teams from across Ukraine.
In the first two stages, our team delivered near-perfect scores. However, during the final stage, we needed to build a Snake-like game in five hours. Two teammates responsible for planning and architecture, after 2 hours of work, admitted their work was unusable. Fatigued by time zone differences and previous rounds, they were ready to give up, especially since we got only 3 hours to finish.
I spoke to them individually, listening to their frustrations and ideas for salvaging the project. After that, I then regrouped the team, refocusing strategy based on our strengths and prior points. Through fast, open communication and adapting the approach, we managed to complete the minimum required for final grading. These efforts led to securing absolute first place at the national level, despite difficult circumstances, and taught me a valuable hands-on experience.
02 - Took the Initiative
At the beginning of the Russian invasion in 2022, I was in Kharkiv, east of Ukraine. Invasion has forced most of the population to leave their homes, returning schools to online education, and leaving children with unstable plans for the future. During that time I was in my penultimate grade at high school, and was looking for any opportunity to learn anything new that might help me in the future.
After my move to Sweden, 8 months after the start of the invasion, I got my opportunity to learn Machine Learning and AI from the leading companies in Sweden, and made my path into the future. But there were only 4 Ukrainians who got this opportunity, and I felt that there were many more teens, who were like me, looking for every opportunity to study and move on. After talking with one of my classmates who moved to a small village in Poland, I understood that I needed to do something. On the same day, my friend from Ukraine, who was in the same program as I, started our work on online ML/AI courses for high schoolers in Ukraine. By utilising every piece of knowledge that we got in person in Sweden, and translating it into simple words, we created a 10-week-long online course for our peers, and have managed to educate 20 high schoolers basics of Machine Learning. This course took dozens of hours of rewriting, researching, meetings with potential speakers, writing concepts, and teaching online lectures, and led us to a great experience of organizing a huge project by ourselves.
03 - Persuaded someone to see your point of view
At the Ukrainian Olympiad in Informatics, I was a jury member responsible for ensuring a fair competition. Partway through the contest, a coach and a student both reported that the student’s exam account was showing zero points and seemed to belong to someone else. Another jury member believed this was for sure cheating between the coach and the student.
Instead of rushing to judgment, I suggested we investigate further. Working with our credentials manager, I discovered that, due to a technical error, two students had been given the same login. As a result, points were awarded to only one account, creating confusion, since the original account of the first student didn’t receive any points, since she was sending them to the second one, but no evidence of dishonesty.
I explained the technical problem and timeline to the other elder and proficient jury, showing that it was an honest mistake on our side. After reviewing the facts, the committee agreed with my proposed timeline of events that explained the situation and recommended not to disqualify anyone unfairly. The student was able to continue competing and later earned a top ranking.
04 - Worked with a team
During my first year at WashU, I participated in the Hack WashU hackathon. To compete in the competition, we needed to find a team with up to 4 students, in the same proficiency category – new or professionals. Due to my previous experience, I was given a spot at the proficient league, and I have found 3 more people for the team - undergrad senior, 2 graduate students, and me as a freshman, combining 3 different countries (China, South Korea, and Ukraine).
Given 36 hours, our challenge was to build a new app in categories like AI, Visually Stunning, or Health & Fitness, and opportunity to get an additional nomination from Mastercard by using their API in the project. After careful brainstorming, we decided to develop a financial analysis tool that would process bank user data: income, sources, dates, and categories. Using the OpenAI API, we generated colorful graphs and sheets to complement data from Mastercard’s system.
After hours of coding, a small break for a sleep, constant rewriting of code, a lot of learning new technologies about APIs, and talking to a representative of Mastercard to improve the experience, we have completed our demoversion. By the end of the hackaton, we have learned a great deal about APIs, teamwork, and integrating AI technologies. lthough we didn’t place in the top three for any of the main categories, but we were the only one awarded a special nomination from Mastercard, and had first experience in such international team.