When Apple Viriyakattiyaporn was growing up in the Thai city of Ubonratchathani, she wanted to pursue a number of different career paths in areas such as business, life sciences and politics. By the end of high school, she had begun to consider pursing computer science; she shares, “I started noticing the impact of computer technology on people’s lives, such as the computer games that my brother was playing, the office software that became essential to every student and teacher and the instant messenger that allowed me to talk to many people from all over the world.” It was a field that intrigued Apple: “it made me … want to know more. Besides, I knew I would be able to find a job internationally, which would give me opportunities to see the world.” When asked about why she chose DCS’ program, Apple enthuses, “I wanted to study in North America because … it is the continent where technology is actively developed. Also, after I visited campuses of other top universities in Canada, including McGill and Waterloo, I felt I would be happy living and studying in Toronto. I was convinced UofT was the number one university in Canada, and I enjoy the city.” She continues with a smile, “Toronto is clean and well-organized, public transportation reaches everywhere and there are many kinds of Asian food I can survive on.”
Now that Apple is in her fourth (and final) year of study, she has had a chance to really immerse herself in the department culture, and develop her interests in certain aspects of computer science: “the best experiences I have had at DCS come from working on some projects with my friends. For two summers, I had the chance to work on DrProject, developing tag cloud and tagging mechanisms for the application. I got to know other computer science students, who were very friendly, and learned a lot about best working practices, how to collaborate and how to present our progress.” Apple is now taking a project course, where she is involved in a project called Tree Viz: “We will fully deploy the methods of software engineering and HCI to manage the project, and to enhance the functionality and user interface of the web application.”
Asked to offer advice to prospective DCS undergraduate students, Apple answers quickly, “Learn to manage your time, to collaborate, and to be satisfied- your marks might not be as good as what you did in high school, but as long as you are confident that you have gained the knowledge and skills relevant for your career, then all is well.”
In this busy student’s spare time, Apple enjoys reading, cooking and learning new languages. She has really taken advantage of what the DCS program has to offer, and has enjoyed these opportunities. Through all of it, she has managed to keep things in perspective, sharing, “the university environment itself makes me feel peaceful.”
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