Steven Bursztyn, ‘16

I am a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering & Applied Science.

 

I am pursuing two majors, computer science and cognitive science, as well as a minor in mathematics. For now, I am pursuing internships in software engineering, but I might explore product management next year.

 

I'd like to work at a big tech company coming out of a college, with the hopes of starting my own tech-oriented business after I get more experience. To that end, I worked at Google in Los Angeles this past summer as a Software Engineering intern, and will return to Google again this summer at their New York City office.

 

At Scheck Hillel, I was able to hone many life and academic skills, including being involved both in and out of school. Hillel instilled in me the importance of academics, but also the importance of doing something outside academics, whether helping out the community, or involving yourself in clubs or extracurricular activities. To that end, in college I was prepared to balance my academics with heavy extracurricular activities, including being a brother of AEPi, helping the community through Engineers Without Borders, planning one of the nation's largest hackathons through PennApps, and being an undergraduate Teaching Assistant for the Data Structures and Algorithms computer science course.

 

Going into computer science or any other engineering major might feel intimidating at first, but it's extremely rewarding once you progress. Don't underestimate what you can handle, and push yourself to take not the easiest classes in college, but rather those where you will learn the most. It is so much more important to learn a lot, than to be constantly worrying about grades. Difficulty should not be a reason stopping you from going into engineering -- with hard work, you will be able to do it!