Janet Cui
Let’s start with an introduction. Can you tell me your year, pronouns, your majors/minors, and hometown?
My name is Janet, I’m a third-year studying data science, and I go by the she/her series. I’m from Fremont, California! Love the bay. Half of my high school is at this school though, I swear.
How did you choose your major? Why data science?
So when I first came to Berkeley, I was fully intending on majoring in statistics. I followed the whole pipeline of “AP Stats was so fun I love my TI-84!" and very naively thought that it would be all sunshines and rainbows. But in sophomore year, I got absolutely destroyed by probability and upper div math courses, so I decided to slightly switch paths and try out data science. There’s a decent amount of overlap and I still have to take a good number of statistics courses, but I do like the classes that I am taking now much more.
What do you do in SAAS? What committees have you been in, and which was your favorite?
I’ve been an Internal girlie my entire SAAS career, so my favorite committee would have to be Internal Affairs. No bias whatsoever, it’s the best and that’s a fact. But yeah, currently I’m serving as the Internal Vice-President this semester, so any fun socials, big-little activities, Instagram reels–that’s all me and my beautiful committee!
That’s interesting, why did you originally choose to join the Internal Affairs committee of a data science club?
I get that a lot honestly, like why would you join a data science club to do event planning? I will say that it was not in my original plans to stay in Internal Affairs for so long. Back when I joined SAAS during fall of my sophomore year, I was still super intimidated by technical work. I was getting obliterated by my coursework, and I could barely do anything with Git without 800 merge errors. I applied for the Internal Affairs committee then because I knew that a lot of my skill set of event planning and content editing would fit in well with the work. Also because I really am a logistics type of gal–I like planning and organizing things, as well as seeing all the ideas from my brain come to life. I fully intended on transferring to a different committee the following semester to engage in more data science related work, but after my first semester in the club, I had all these ideas for improvement and how we could make the experience even better for our members. I knew that these were ideas that I really believed in and wanted to see carried out, so I decided to stay on in Internal.
How did you originally find out about SAAS, and why did you decide to join?
My story of how I found SAAS isn’t that exciting honestly–I wish I had a better story to tell you. Basically I was scrolling on CalLink over the summer (riveting, I know), and I found this club that was then known as Students Association for Applied Statistics. SAAS now is a data science organization rather than the pure statistics it used to be, but at the time just based on the name, I was like, “oh, how fitting.” It helped a lot that the entire recruitment process was a lot more laid-back and chill than a lot of other clubs on campus. I get overwhelmed very easily, which is why I used to actively map different routes to avoid the glade/Sproul during the first 2 weeks of school, and the idea of having to go through multiple rounds of interviews and be judged by so many peers was terrifying. For SAAS, I essentially just had a 30 minute chat with Edlyn, she asked me a few questions, and I did my best to show her how much I wanted to join SAAS and that I’d be a committed member. And that was kind of it! That’s how everything started for me.
So you’re an exec for SAAS now, what is that like?
It’s different for each position, I’d say. I’m not going to lie, the 5 of us each do so much that it’s kind of hard to keep track of exactly what the others are doing. I will say that the life of the IVP is admittedly very chaotic and unglamorous. At any given second I could be driving around with a trunk full of 25 pumpkins for our Big/Little pumpkin carving contest, or spamming emails at vendors for an upcoming event, or on the floor of my living room stuffing gift bags and Nice Things for Banquet. Or Slack. I spend a lot of time on Slack. That was one thing I learned, actually, after coming into this position. It takes a lot more brain power than you’d expect drafting an announcement because you have to find pretty emojis and insert links and things. I wonder if we’d be able to clock in our hours–I think that’d be some pretty interesting data to look at.
What would you say is your proudest accomplishment in SAAS?
I’m thinking through everything I’ve done so far and…this is a difficult question to answer. There hasn't been an event that I put out yet where I walked out of it thinking, “yeah, that was perfect.” The closest it's been would be Banquet this year–I think it turned out really cute and I’m happy with it at least. There are always small details that I think I could have improved on or made better in general, even if they weren’t huge things that many people would notice. If anything, I think my proudest accomplishment would be implementing and introducing a lot of new ideas this semester. Edlyn, our previous IVP, set the standard high when it came to SAAS’s social scene, and I wanted to raise the bar even higher. You know, things like hosting new events such as the iron chef potluck and trampoline social, or making care packages for all 120 of our members, these small improvements each semester are baby steps for the long game. And even if some of the plans that I’d spent months imagining in my head didn’t turn out the way I expected, at least we tried it and we learned from it. Actually, let me change my answer. I think my proudest accomplishment was truly just giving SAAS my all this semester. I say “eat, sleep, breathe SAAS” as a joke, but honestly… I don’t know. It’s mildly insane, I suppose, but it’s like you really get what you put into it. I personally really enjoy seeing people smile, so if me putting in more time and effort into something for the club means that I get to see more of our SAASies have a good time and enjoy their experience, I think it’s worth it. I want our members to be proud that they’re part of SAAS, and for SAAS to be part of some of their core college memories. Maybe I’m being too ambitious, I don’t know, but I’d like to think that I’ve started making a difference, even if it’s small. That’s something to be proud of, I think.
How did you make friends in SAAS?
Exposure therapy. No, I’m sorry, that’s a really bad way to put it haha! It’s kind of true though. I’m pretty introverted, and was especially so as a new member. I was lucky enough to be paired with a twin in my Big/Little family though, and I got pretty close with him [Chris Zhan] really fast. Chris was my safety blanket the first semester and I would literally just attach myself to him whenever we had SAAS events. It was also particularly helpful that he’s a social butterfly, so whenever I was with him, we’d be around different people. Again, exposure therapy. The more I saw other SAASies at events, the more comfortable I got with them, and I was eventually able to open up to them and become great friends. Most of my closest friends now are all from SAAS, and it scares me to think sometimes that I was so close to not meeting them because I was so nervous before.
Is that the advice you would give to newer SAASies then? Go to as many events as you can?.
100%. You just need to give other SAASies a chance to meet you because chances are, they’ll introduce themselves first because they want to get to know you as well! I still remember very clearly the first SAAS infosession I went to back when I was applying. I went alone, and I honestly felt really awkward sitting in the middle of GPB100 by myself. Justin Cheung, who was an IA director at the time, saw me sitting alone and walked up to me and introduced himself. We got to chat a little before the presentations started, and I’m always grateful to him for being the first SAAS member that talked to me ever. Later when I got into SAAS and I saw him at Welcome Night or some other event, he said something like “Oh Janet, you made it! It’s nice to see you again.” It felt really nice that he remembered my name and said hi to me, and it made it seem less scary to talk to older SAAS members.
Do you have a favorite memory in SAAS that stands out?
There’s so many, how do I choose? I’ll go with my birthday this year, that’s for sure a happy memory. So I’m a Scorpio baby, and my birthdays have somehow always coincided with the dates of our SAAS Halloween parties. My own big, Kish, is amazing and hosts parties for SAAS, and it would always be really funny when people would scream Happy Birthday at me or sing at random times throughout the night. I don’t usually celebrate my birthday, and this year was the first time I’ve celebrated since 3rd grade or so, which made it all the more special.
Let’s transition into some more ‘get to know you questions.’ What hobbies and interests do you have?
I really enjoy scrapbooking, photography, and just crafty things in general. My love language to others is gift-giving and acts of service, so there’s just a lot of handmade birthday cards, DIY gifts, and chaos at any point of time. I tried journaling at some point since so many people say it’s helpful and I thought I could reinvent myself as an artsy journaling girl, but I’m also so emotionally constipated that I could not take myself seriously when I did it. Like I tried to follow my stream of consciousness and just write whatever I was thinking or feeling, but I would write a few sentences, accidentally read it and think “ew, that’s disgusting is that what I sound like?”, aggressively cross it out, and then chuck the journal across the room and give up. So I’m not a big fan of journaling, but I am a big fan of nail art. I do my own gel-x nails, and it’s one of the few things I need to have done so that I feel like a functioning human being and not a decomposing sewer rat. Like I can be in sweats and crocs and look like I just rose from the dead, but if I have cute nails, nah I’m a baddie.
What’s a topic that you could talk for hours about?
I have way too much random knowledge on plastic surgery and other cosmetic procedures. Like I have no intention of ever getting a BBL in my lifetime, but if you need a surgeon, I’ve got some reputable clinics on hand. I can probably recommend several laser treatments to improve fine lines and skin texture, and also give you a consultation on the different hyaluronic acid lip filler brands and the results you’ll get from each. How I accumulated all this information, I have no idea. I am my own WebMD.
What’s your dream job?
Rich hot pilates mom housewife with a fat rock on my finger. I’m joking, although not really on the mom part. I guess it’s not technically an industry career that can financially support you, but I would love to dedicate a lot of my time to being a mom and just taking care of and supporting the people that I love. I think I’m largely influenced by my own mom–she runs a daycare in our home, so growing up I was always surrounded by a lot of toddlers running around the place. I’m the younger sibling in my family (I have an older sister), but I always felt like the cool older sister whenever I helped out with the kids after school and during the summers. Of course, the whole toddlers thing became less cool when I entered high school and had to study for exams with the screaming banshees in the room next door, but I still look back on those memories fondly and I loved being part of their life. I would always get really sad whenever they got old enough to go to kindergarten and left, but sometimes they would come back to trick-or-treat for Halloween, and they would remember my name and give me a hug. So I don’t know, if we’re talking about a job that would earn some sort of money that would be cool to do, I’d say a fancy, no-budget wedding planner or photographer. Otherwise, I’m happy with my answer of being a mom.
If you could choose to do anything for a day, what would it be?
I want to exist as my dog, Lily, for a day. I genuinely just want to see what she does everyday. I tried attaching a GoPro to her before so I could see the footage, but that didn’t work out. My parents treat her like a princess, she’s so spoiled.
What is your toxic trait?
My toxic trait is that if you don’t speak to me first, or at the very least make some sort of friendly eye-contact, I will assume you hate me and never try to talk to you because I’m scared of you.
Biggest fear and why?
This is going to sound so obnoxious. Whatever. I think my biggest fear would be that I’m useless or forgotten. I never want to be that person in a team where there’s no difference whether or not they’re there. I want to feel like I’ve contributed and I’m not useless. This is probably why I have the tendency to go overboard with planning or ideas to prove my worth.
If you weren’t majoring in data science, what would you study?
I think psychology is a really cool subject, particularly child psychology. Again, this might be influenced by the fact that I’ve been around kids my entire life, but I think it would be interesting to learn more about early childhood education as it pertains to cognitive development from infancy to teenage years.
What are your red flags?
I used to say that I’m really bad at responding to messages, but I’ve gotten a lot better this semester. I respond almost instantly now, or at least within 20ish minutes. It used to be like 3 to 5 business days if you were lucky. You would get an Amazon Prime package before you ever heard back from me. As for other red flags… I say “it’s because I’m pretty” a lot. Like the parking enforcement officer that gave me a ticket? It’s because he’s obsessed with me, not because I parked without a permit. This is something I need to stop saying, actually, because people think I’m being for real and not joking when I say this and they look at me weird.
Best and worst gifts received?
I don’t have a standout “best gift” that comes to mind, but I do have a funny one. So my family doesn’t really do presents, whether it’s birthday presents, Christmas presents, or whatever. It was kind of just like my parents got us the things we needed or wanted throughout the year, like a new phone or something, and that was our “gift” for the year. I don’t know when this understanding started, but my earliest memory of it was when I was five. Me, my dad, and my sister were at Petsmart looking at those cute birdhouses that you could hang on trees. We got the things we needed and checked-out, and then when we got to the car in the parking lot, my dad handed the birdhouse we just bought to my sister and said “Happy Birthday.” Right after that, he heaved the giant sack of bird seed in front of me and was like “Happy Birthday Janet.” I probably was so confused and didn’t know what was going on at the time, but that memory hit me like a truck a few years back and I thought it was literally so funny. Like I can’t believe my sister got the nice looking bird house as her gift, but I got the 40-pound sack of bird seed that was basically as tall as me. Honestly I’m still offended about this, maybe I’ll call her and pick a fight with her tonight.
What’s your favorite item of clothing?
Do shoes count? Kish got me this pair of bright pink Crocs for my birthday last year and they’re quite possibly the best thing I own. Actually maybe that would be the best gift I’ve received–it’s certainly the most useful at least. I love my pink crocs and they’re amazing. They’re indestructible and I’m always stomping around in them. It’s funny because I’m usually wearing all black or close to it, and then BAM the bright pink Crocs just hit you like a truck. So fire. Such a slay.
What is your spirit animal?
I feel like I’m an ostrich, honestly. It’s just something about a large bird with a small brain that looks calm and in its own world, but can also be scary and dangerous if alarmed. It’s me. I’m the large bird with a small brain. But seriously, before people get to know me, so many of them say that I gave off intimidating vibes. I don’t get it because I’m 5’3” and feel like I’m the least scary person. Go off I guess.
If you came with a warning label, what would it say?
Emotionally constipated and comes with raging anxiety.