Episode Transcript
Sarah (00:00:00 - 00:00:21): So you're originally from China and you said that you didn't have a master's degree, you only had a bachelor's degree.
Sarah (00:00:21 - 00:00:32): And then you got into a PhD at UT, Arlington. Arlington. Yeah. I mean, how did you decide you wanted a PhD? How did you decide you wanted to come to the US?
Li (00:00:32 - 00:00:46): That's a good question. So like in the college, I have two other roommates. One come to USC. Another one to England for like study, right?
Li (00:00:46 - 00:00:57): And that's like signal. You say people around you are going abroad and I also have my boyfriend, ex boyfriend.
Li (00:00:57 - 00:01:22): Like also come to USA and like, okay, bye, we have to wake up because I'm going to USA to study. I'm like, okay, USA is a longer one country. If I have to go somewhere, I'm going to go to USA and I'm going to apply it everything just by myself. And I understand the experience, no matter what, it's going to either I would go back to China or if I would want to stay in USA, it would only do good.
Li (00:01:22 - 00:01:39): That's why I decided to really come. But but but at the time, I don't really understand like different states. If I would understand, okay, say to conglada is this Center for innovation, I would have picked a university in California instead.
Li (00:01:39 - 00:01:46): I was applying university or across the different states because I didn't know the state actually matters.
Sarah (00:01:46 - 00:02:01): I mean, I grew up in this country and I still didn't really understand that I was very sheltered. And so I mean, I always thought like New York was the center of everything, but now that I'm, you know, I've been in tech a while.
Sarah (00:02:01 - 00:02:07): Same Princess goes the center of tech, New York's the center of banks and business like that. Yeah.
Li (00:02:07 - 00:02:10): And yeah, I had no knowledge.
Sarah (00:02:10 - 00:02:23): And most people are age at that point in life. Don't have that knowledge. And it's not something like our parents can enlighten us about. So you haven't gone through the process.
Li (00:02:23 - 00:02:30): Yeah, my parents actually know nothing about what I want you to do. They were to think it's crazy. Oh, you're going to USA.
Sarah (00:02:30 - 00:02:34): Yeah, so so they don't have a degree at all. I don't know.
Li (00:02:34 - 00:02:58): Oh, I've known not at all. My mom went to school for three years and my father nine years. Oh, wow. Yeah, I'm the first generation went to college. So I consider that way lucky actually because born like be raised in a household that your parents, it's just so easy to be young to the expectation.
Li (00:02:58 - 00:03:27): Like you got all your parents are always proud of you because the bar is so know. So I grew up in a voice is like praise. Oh, you're doing so good. You know, and they don't really tell me what I need to do. It's like I figured out and I actually consider that experience very lucky compared with kids who go up, you know, family, your parents have to decide with the future and give you all the kind of guidance.
Li (00:03:27 - 00:03:40): You know, to make sure you're on the right track, but I was like I just explore my truck everything just by myself. And that's why I'm like so good at dealing with uncertainty and navigating whatever it is.
Li (00:03:40 - 00:03:46): I'm like, I'm going to fake it out and I can't. And what I do my parents are proud of me.
Sarah (00:03:46 - 00:03:53): Well, I mean that goes against like the stereotype where like usually Asian parents, it doesn't matter which country or culture they're from.
Li (00:03:53 - 00:04:14): They're always demanding more from their child. Yeah, yeah. And luckily the opposite. My parents is like, oh, you're going to you. I say you're really good. You want to college. You don't have to go to do that. And when you were I tried to walk way hard. I'm like doing a start-up and my mom is like, we are really so proud of you. You don't have to work so hard.
Sarah (00:04:14 - 00:04:27): So you do it because of your own inner drive and the things you want to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And usually people who are very successful aren't doing it because their parents talk on the ground and do it. They do it because they themselves want to do it because they have the ambition.
Li (00:04:27 - 00:04:47): That is true. But at the PhD because I thought, oh, maybe I'll be a professor in the future. It's very different like how I turn out to be where I am. But then I thought I want to be a professor and I become more realistic because doing a professor you need to go way, way top university.
Li (00:04:47 - 00:05:10): I'm international and I changed my major and I skipped the master right when I was applying to university. So and I my university was ranked like 90 computer science in USA. But I also got into another one like clam sing university. I think it's slightly better but still.
Li (00:05:10 - 00:05:25): You're not in a position that you could do top large research and especially with a professor that full is not less supposed you to do the right research. It's been become even harder so I decided to lot take that past.
Sarah (00:05:25 - 00:05:32): So what tools do you use to stay up to speed with like all the different happenings that are in AI.
Li (00:05:32 - 00:06:05): I don't consider myself as a person for likes to follow a lot of channels. A lot of people on social media. I don't I consider social media very, very noisy right the way I. I'm sure knowledge is I know you might want one channel where it can give you information about what's the newest things all day.
Li (00:06:05 - 00:06:27): It might be a good like newsletter channel that aggregates all the technology events what to get have ripple out there and the one I use is called alpha signal. It's a newsletter and I think they did a decent job because they've to summarize what's a hard is to trade a trade right.
Li (00:06:27 - 00:06:45): What's the top rapes in the AI space and what what are the top research papers. So really there's a lot of research going on but the one that makes a huge difference is very small and the second way I follow.
Li (00:06:45 - 00:07:03): The second way I do the learning is to stay very relevant about where I am. I might look ahead maybe one year or something in terms of okay what I want to achieve in one year and I work backwards.
Li (00:07:03 - 00:07:26): I want to build up a lot for example right now I'm trying to build a lot of knowledge in recommendation space and you can talk to people you can talk to researchers who's already and say you know what's a trend here talking to people they've to give you very high level and the research paper all the research paper if someone is in their space.
Li (00:07:26 - 00:07:46): They follow what what what what's the most important papers in the space and there would be a very good group of people that you can quickly on board yourself is this state of the art but if you just Google right if you just Google you don't know how trustworthy those source and they might not give you exactly what you want.
Li (00:07:46 - 00:08:15): So I have to say the second way to nine is talk talk to people and understand where is the state of the art is and I've the rate those top few papers that represents the field and then from those paper you get to understand like how it was done before right you get to span a few paper because they always link the always side between each other so you get to speak out a lot of information.
Li (00:08:15 - 00:08:43): And every single paper is able to talk about the domain you know the history and then you get to learn and you find more papers and from those papers you know you just like search and I write a lot of new paper in the future of the but you just need to know a few top of the best you only know from the best levels read a random paper I don't read a random paper it has to be a paper that's where it's worth my time to read.
Li (00:08:43 - 00:09:12): I think the thing is we are way, way time sensitive we want stuff hype and fast but we can't wait we just become so impatient and which I think it is a good thing because imagine before you have to go to a lot of contrary to attend a meeting but now you can just do it online right where the meeting is more valuable I do consider it's more productive because you don't have to go.
Li (00:09:12 - 00:09:41): Because you don't have to go leave your family to attend that meeting if you could do it online and it's still the same value because a lot of people this we consider the like we need more and more human conversation and not necessarily in your geography like close nearby you might build your relation with nearby people for sure but you also need a lot of relation with people globally.
Li (00:09:41 - 00:10:10): Maybe one day you visit and you're like oh I talked to a guy person about the accommodation system maybe come friends I would visit this person when I went to the country right and then the same day and they come to where you are at it's a different camp let's make you know they're like so far across the world but they still opportunity to meet someday and you can still continue to engage with them because you're not necessarily finding the people in your field in the same location.
Li (00:10:10 - 00:10:39): I want to give people value. I think mentors sometimes the mentor others because it's a way to help them to learn to teach so great way to learn because the time when you're mentees like asking you this questions right it gets you to think maybe normally I haven't even thought I didn't summarize how you should process something like this right you end up like putting it into words.
Li (00:10:39 - 00:11:08): Like something you already know but it's a time for you to put into words and something like give guidance but not everyone is into it for sure it's definitely has nice value for them mentor if just purely based on people if they want or not and then the system won't be bind is just you want enough good people to be in a system to mentor right and you want to be a mentor.
Li (00:11:08 - 00:11:18): And you want this mentee to actually be appreciating what they are getting and they know they have to contribute back to in the future.
Sarah (00:11:18 - 00:11:36): And that is like social responsibility and stuff like that but there are people that don't have that and that kind of goes back to people who are only interacting with bots only see themselves as the center of the universe and they don't really see life as a given a take they just want to take.
Li (00:11:36 - 00:12:25): Yeah yeah yeah exactly and I wouldn't want a system like that so I'm creating a system right I think even if it's not about wanting right I'm trying to create a point system to keep them like accountable if you are spending more than 200 points a system give you two conversation with mentors right you can book meetings with them and then the mentor that have make points like this like they got rewarded by points right and if your points going to be known and some points I wouldn't for kill for any mentorship meeting because I know it's time there must be someone for his message experience thank you right and all maybe it's on a different topic.
Li (00:12:25 - 00:12:38): May you just have to be good at something to give back before you can take more like so right now we only cover you right but in the future we might cover some other space.
Li (00:12:38 - 00:13:09): Now if you are if you're like someone told to new maybe you're good with like playing some games not like that game I'm next for example what if you are good with exercising you can help a lot of person with exercising what if you're good with plenty right this is always something you should be good at and to teach other I encourage everyone to teach and to learn on the plaffle yeah that's that's really good.
Sarah (00:13:09 - 00:13:52): Hi I'm Sarah from Sarah in tech and I just want to give a shout out to if you want to learn more about Sarah in tech follow me on LinkedIn just here's Sarah Herberger that's H-E-R-B-E-R-G-E-R or on Instagram Twitter and Facebook we have Sarah in tech as the handle if you're looking to hear the unedited version of all of these episodes they're available on Apple Amazon and Spotify just search for Sarah in tech.
