Introducing Amy
Chi-en (Amy) Tai (she/her) is a Master of Applied Science (MASc) student in Systems Design Engineering at the University of Waterloo. As an alum of Waterloo, she returned in May 2022 to pursue her graduate studies. Amy is the proud recipient of the Alumna Gold Medal 2022 for Engineering.
International experience abroad
Amy had the incredible opportunity to go to Paris, France to gain valuable research experience and broaden her knowledge and skills in the field of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Large Language Models (LLM) in the medical space. She was able to facilitate this research experience through connections with a lab in Paris that specializes in medical LLMs and NLP research.
Throughout her trip, Amy experienced valuable learning opportunities, gaining new academic, professional and personal connections, some of which were unexpected. Not only did she gain research experience in her field of NLP and medical LLMs by working alongside international experts, but she also learned more about graduate school in Europe and how the systems differ country to country, as well as what working in those countries was like. Therefore, though Amy’s main objective in Paris was to expand and gain knowledge and experience in her field, she wound up becoming knowledgeable about all kinds of aspects of French and European culture and life. Amy was also able to make the most out of her travelling experience through her stay at a University Campus (Cité internationale universitaire de Paris) that catered specifically to international students across the world. The campus included a house for each country (i.e. Canada house, Japan house, etc.), and Amy had the pleasure of meeting and finding community with other international exchange students from all over the world. The new friendships that blossomed from both her housing and lab enabled her to explore Paris as a city, as well as other parts of Europe recreationally. These personal connections, along with the professional connections she had made, contributed greatly to the overall success of her trip.
Amy’s travelling experience, however, did not come without some challenges. Communication using the French language presented challenges at times – as variances in diction or accent can sometimes become barriers in communication. Additionally, Amy found navigation through the city to be complex, and thus took some time to get acquainted with the Metro and how it operated inside and out. Overall, she found that the day-to-day life in Paris differed wildly to that of Canada, noting that something as basic to us as window screens do not seem to really exist there. It was evident that these inherent cultural differences between France and Canada posed some unique challenges to Amy that she did not quite expect.
All in all, Amy’s research exchange to Paris, France was an incredibly enriching experience. She made the most of it by expanding her knowledge and skills in her field, making new professional connections and friends, and overcoming any obstacles that came her way.
Advice to other graduate students
One thing Amy wants other graduate students to know is that going on a research exchange program is well worth the experience, even though the experience as a whole could be rocky and bring about unexpected challenges. She acknowledges that there will be times that feel particularly difficult, but in her experience, everything ended up working out in the end.