Student Social, but v i r t u a l 😮

Symsys Society held a social on Sunday, November 1 from 8-9pm. Twelve students joined us--from prospective Symsys majors to CS seniors! We offered two breakout room activities: Among Us and Music+Chill. We began with group introductions, sharing what drew us to Symsys and which breakout room we’d like to be in.

In the music breakout room, we put on some music and had a general atmosphere conducive to sharing--be it sharing our favorite songs, talking about our lives, or giving Stanford advice to each other. Check out our collaborative playlist here! 

In the Among Us room, we had back-to-back games where we explored all three of the environments. The third is the most confusing… All but one round was won by the crewmates, while only one was won by the imposter killing all the crewmates.

Thanks to all those who came out last Sunday--until next time! Be sure to look out for our future socials! :)

Making progress on a Spotify playlist in the music breakout room!

Alumni Panel on Careers in Product

Thoughts from Millie Lin ‘22, Annie Ma ‘24

SymSys Society spoke with 3 alumni today, who are currently working in product (specifically: product management, product design) in companies around the world: Instagram, Optoro, and Boston Consulting Group. Among giving class recommendations, praising the classes and recording studio at CCRMA, and sharing three different interpretations of the meaning of Symbolic Systems, one theme emerged about the purpose of the SymSys major: The systems and representations we learn in SymSys allow us the flexibility to solve all kinds of problems and switch between all sorts of subjects. Data wrangling in the morning and product design in the afternoon? No sweat. A job asks for experience in user research or engineering? Check out all the psychology and CS classes we’ve taken! Sure, majoring in SymSys doesn’t guarantee we’ll remember how to code CS107’s heap allocator, but the computational systems underlying computers, language, philosophy, and psychology have the real staying power.

Our speakers:

• Katherine Liu: Katherine Liu graduated with a Symbolic Systems degree in 2018, and is now a product designer at Instagram, where she designs systems to prevent bullying and empower targets of harassment. On the side, she also runs her own small business illustrating and creating motivational wall art and home decor.

• John Liu: John is from Stratford-upon-Avon, England, and graduated in 2019 from the Symbolic Systems program. He is now based in Washington D.C. working as a Product Manager at Optoro, a startup that helps retailers route their returned and excess inventory to reduce waste and improve profitability. Outside of work, he is trying to figure out how to stay in America when his visa expires.

• Niall Sohan: Niall graduated in 2019 with a SymSys degree (Cognitive Science) with minors in German Studies and Slavic Languages & Literature. After graduation, he started as a Product Manager at BCG Digital Ventures in LA and will soon transition to a new Product role at Endpoint, a startup that aims to revolutionise the home ownership process.

Thank you to our wise speakers, and thank you to everyone who attended!

In the corner, Steve Carell offers his opinion on whether photogenic people’s faces/names are on Zoom.

Coffee Chat with Katherine Hilton

Thoughts from Millie Lin ‘22

SymSys Society hung out with Dr. Katherine Hilton of the Linguistics Department! Our discussion topics ranged from the origin of Katherine’s path to linguistics, to the nitty gritty of applying to grad school, to how much she loves teaching LINGUIST 1. Some additional highlights:

• Dr. Hilton loves linguistics partly because her college linguistics classes were the jam. But also, because diving into aspects of everyday conversations – an interruption, the impression we form of someone we met – reveals a wonderfully complex system of communication and an understanding of human behavior and society.

• How does one study sociolinguistics? Dr. Hilton introduced us to the fancy-sounding phrase “sociolinguistic variation analysis” – a technique that allows researchers to assess not just where words do come up, but where they could have come up too.

• And lastly, some resources for those hoping to study or work in linguistics without also being a full-fledged programmer: https://linguistlist.org/career/search/, https://careerlinguist.com, https://mlc.linguistics.georgetown.edu/about/ 

Thoughts from Regina T.H. Ta ‘23

As a new convert to Symsys (just declared last week!), the Natural Language track piqued my interest. Among the list of possible courses, LINGUIST 150: Language and Society, caught my eye. Given that Dr. Katherine Hillton teaches that class, I was very excited to sit down for a coffee chat with her and learn more about her work in sociolinguistics!

For me, the most memorable moments were when Dr. Hilton shared with us her research questions: for instance, what counts as an interruption? How do we perceive interruptions made by women, as opposed to interruptions by men? And, what counts as “good” English? What biases do we carry against diverse speakers of English--say, British versus Chinese speakers? Ultimately, how do we judge the legitimacy of a particular accent?

Dr. Hilton raised fascinating questions, challenging the race & gender politics at play in our everyday language. I really appreciated her taking the time to chat with us! As an attempt to answer her questions, I hope to explore more courses in linguistics, such as LINGUIST 156: Language and Gender and LINGUIST 150E: Who Speaks Good English--also taught by Dr. Hilton!

Thanks for speaking with us, Dr. Hilton! It was pretty awesome.

Coffee Chat with Hyoung Kim

Hyoung Kim on the bottom left. (Ah, Zoom! Communicating virtual joy even through some closed eyes ;) )

Thoughts from Michelle Ly ‘21

I invited Hyoung to our SymSys Coffee Chat with high expectations -- and I was not disappointed. Though I have never taken a course on Kant in my three years at Stanford, Hyoung gave a great crash course on his work (with the skill one would expect from a 7th year Ph.D. philosophy student focusing on Kant). 

Here’s a list of my takeaways from the coffee chat:

• There are 3 types of philosophers: Wittgenstein (someone who did not read much philosophy but had great ideas), Kant (someone who read philosophy selectively that matched his beliefs and had great ideas), and someone who is interested in history for its own sake and the development of ideas (well-read and versed)

• Kant argues we need some notion of God to believe we all have the same morality; an individual cannot be the sole source of moral rules

• Animals have reasoning, but humans have special capacity to distinguish between reasons for reflection purposes

• For arguments against categorical imperative that state someone is doing good just for their own self-love, the very fact you think self-love is a problem is itself kind of a sign that there’s something deeper than self-love motivating you!

Thoughts from Miles McCain ‘24

Philosophy as a discipline is new to me, so I thought having a coffee chat with Hyoung Kim—who teaches PHIL 1, the intro philosophy class—would be a great way to learn more about the field. Kim specializes on Kant, so we started by discussing Kant's legacy and role in modern philosophy. Kim proposed that Kant is to modern philosophy as the C programming language is to modern programming, in the sense that both are foundational and set the framework for what came after. 

The most impactful moment in the coffee chat for me was when Kim noted that essentially everyone is hardworking, but only a subset of people are recognized (by society, others, or even themselves) as hardworking. He made this comment during a discussion on meta-reasoning, which then turned to a discussion on the categorical imperative. 

I walked out of the coffee chat with a strong feeling that philosophy classes are in my future!

Humans of SymSys: Eric Zelikman

Eric is a SymSys major (‘20) with a concentration in theoretical neuroscience. Follow him on Medium for posts on AI ethics and neuroscience-inspired learning algorithms!

Why SymSys?

I think the way in which people learn, understand the world, and communicate is fascinating, and I also think there’s lot of overlooked inspiration to draw on for and to come from computational learning algorithms.

If you weren’t a SymSys major, what would you be?

Probably any two of CS, linguistics, and math.

Favorite SymSys course(s)?

Philosophy of Neuroscience (PHIL 167D w/ Prof. Rosa Cao) and Deep Generative Models (CS236) have shaped how I think about a lot of the topics I’m passionate about!

Response to all the SymSys memes out there?

I love them haha. It’s fun to joke about your major. Also this meme: