Sofia Theodoras
Let's start with some general questions. Why don't you tell me about your background? Your year, your major, and your hometown?
Okay, I'm a first year MCB and CS double major. Hometown is Plano, Texas. And something about me is that my neighbor has sheep.
Wow, cool. Why and how did you choose your majors?
So I first chose MCB, and then I got involved with SAAS and a few other CS clubs and took CS61A and somehow I ended up here. That's the whole story.
Okay, any reason why MCB or CS?
MCB is my passion. I'm not a pre med, but I do love genetics and Immunology. And that's always been one thing that I'm interested in. I wanted to learn a little bit about CS so that I could function within the online world. If I ever were needed to write a website or something, I'd have to always go to somebody. And the CS people have offered me a lot of, I guess, friendship and help and they've always been really open, especially during the pandemic when biology majors are way out of their field. Also since we are online, it's kind of been an opportunity for me to move into the computer science sort of place.
I see. What are some fun facts about you?
I train my cats. That's pretty fun. I played two instruments, double contrabass and bass guitar. And another fun fact. I really like crime shows. There we go.
Let's talk about your hobbies and interests. Anything for entertainment, it can be books, TV shows, movies, music, anything.
I really like Motionless in White and Chase Atlantic. I can type them out in the chat so you can transcribe them better. And then books I like 1984; it's amazing. That's my background. It's a 1984 quote. Oh, then movies, I watch action movies, which is really weird. But I don't like romantic movies. Not a big thing for me. Because I always feel bad for somebody in the end because it's always like a love triangle and somebody's sad. I did like Ocean's 11. Are all the Ocean series so good, like Ocean's 8, 11, 12. I don't know if there's really a difference to me.
Alright, let's talk about your professional interests. What are your professional niches? Why are you interested in those fields and do you have any internship experience you want to share?
I'm interested in immunology, computational biology, and cybersecurity. I haven't had any internships. Unfortunately, freshmen problems right here.
Do you have any other campus involvements?
Oh, so many, too many, too many to count. Okay, I'm involved in DSS. We're doing a project there. I'm involved in CSUA, I think I'm becoming an officer next week or something. I'm in the route stuff in CSUA, and I'm doing the education program in Cloud at Cal, which is really fun. It's about cloud engineering, software, and AWS, which is really cool, because it's a good skill to have. I'm also in the bioprinting club at Berkeley, which is really cool because we're gonna print the TMJ disc, which is like the disc in your jaw. And it's really, really cool, because it's a really bad surgery. Otherwise, I'm in PlexTech. I'm doing their machine learning program to get a little bit better because I want to have an introduction before I throw myself into all these other courses. And I'm in TMS. Yeah, their general meetings are in conflict with my usual schedule so I can't go, but last semester I was really involved in their outreach program and we spoke to a lot of high schools. I chose the academic sector this time but I think next time I'll just go back to outreach because it's a mess this semester. Oh, I'm also in the Math Undergraduate Society. They're really cool people. I definitely recommend even though I'm not a math major, and Women in Math, even though I'm not a math major, I'm doing their web dev for them.
I'm just curious, how can you fit your schedule into so many clubs, you know via your workload?
I think it only works if you're actually interested in what they're doing. Because time is the biggest limiting factor in Berkeley basically. And so I feel like, if you're using your free time to like, the biggest part about clubs is just socializing. And I love socializing. I'm alone in a room. And I'd like to socialize every now and again. So the clubs have actually been a help for me and not really something that helps hold me back, which I think is nice. And I'm learning a whole lot. I mean, it's not like the way that you think it is. It's usually just really chill, because most clubs, it's just really chill. It's just an hour a week per club. That's like four hours. That's not even a full class. And there's a lot of stuff. There's homework too. So that's just like, a few hours on the weekends or the weekdays.
But don't you need to spend a whole lot of time to work on projects?
I do need to work on projects. But when I have projects, I usually have like a few other people I'm working with. And the projects haven't really hit their peak. I think only CS clubs do like hardcore projects. The biology clubs are really chill, because it's mostly just research. But the CS clubs, you do need to put a lot more time into those. For CSUA, it's like a few hours a week when I have time. For PlexTech, it's a lot of lectures, and lecture quizzes, but they haven't started a project yet. DSS is starting their project now. And we're just doing some data cleaning. It's basically like a repeat of SAAS CX which is really nice because I did not understand a thing and I am gonna be honest here. Women in Math, it's just talking to people. There's no projects involved in that. And mostly it's a lot of like, you know, what Brian posts in that math puzzles channel. Those are really fun to do and it's all very chill.
Okay, we're gonna switch to more SAAS-specific questions now. The first one we have is how did you find out about SAAS? And why did you join?
Okay, it's kind of bad the way I found out about SAAS. So you know, Calpolooza, they list the full 1000 clubs at Berkeley? Yeah, I went through the full 1000 and just clicked on anything I saw interesting. It took me like two days to get through all the clubs. And SAAS is one of the ones I found interesting. And I checked out their website. I was like, wow, this is cool. I went to the info sessions. Everybody was nice. And then I applied.
Cool. So what did you learn and do in the CX committee and your role as a director?
The committee was very focused on learning and socializing. And since CX socials weren't as common, I got to know everybody in the club. We got to know each other and hang out. There's a lot of ways to hang out in SAAS. And the project at the end really showed me what I didn't understand in lectures. So I spent a good 15 hours on that project for no reason just because I was googling stuff, I was relearning stuff, I was rewatching the lectures. I felt like that's a really important part, having a project at the end to solidify your knowledge. And as a director, I mostly handle telling people off for what they're doing. I am also working with the other director Kish, who is mostly focusing on logistics. And I'm much more sort of on the social side. So I usually plan the socials, do the socials, and kind of handle stuff like that. Because it is handling the lectures mostly, Kish usually makes sure everybody's on task. And I make sure everybody's having a good time.
What's the reason why you stayed in SAAS after your first semester?
SAAS is a really nice community. There's a lot of really smart people doing a lot of really cool things. And it's really good to help with my homework. I usually do my homework myself. But there it's like, obviously, if I'm going to CS class that everybody at the club has taken. Oh, yeah, it's kind of helpful. Yeah, I mean, I feel like SAAS is the best community I found at Berkeley. I'm gonna be honest, they're the nicest people.
I see. What is your proudest accomplishment in SAAS?
Probably getting the position as CX director.
What inspired you to be a director? What drives you to be a director?
I feel like I'm inspired to be director because I want to give back to the community of SAAS and help inspire the next generation of data scientists to become the best version of themselves. Wow, what a poet.
How has SAAS helped with your career or professional development, you know, deciding on a career path or learning skills?
Data Science is a really, really, really important skill to have in biology and a really important skill to have in genetics especially, and a really important skill to have when working with proteins. So anything that you have to do in biology research papers is literally anything about data science, you need that skill and the best path to go on. I don't think I can say best, but the most lucrative path to go on right now within biology is computational biology. It is like doing the models for proteins. That's how a lot of the protein models were used to show what's in the Coronavirus. That was like computational biology in a lot of the human genome race database, that's a lot of information. And it's all held in this format called FASTA formats. And those are useless unless you use computational biology. So data science is really, really important. And having these clubs where you can learn it that are not just limited to CS majors or stats majors, but are kind of open to help anybody from scratch is really important.
What is your favorite SAAS memory?
For a second, I thought you said favorite SAAS member and I was like, oh, we're about to start a war. Memory? The problem is that it was last semester. I don't remember anything from last semester. We're just gonna see how many people I recalled yesterday. Did you look at pets channel? I might have to say Hot Seat. That's pretty fun. That's a pretty good SAAS memory.
How did you make friends in SAAS? Or how did you meet them?
Um, let's see. I can go through donutbots. Often, I meet a lot of people. I never actually end up following up with the people I meet in donutbots. But it was the best way I think as a new member to feel kind of included. And there's a few people, like Rachel and Kish, who consistently go to every single social and I'm one of those people. So we became homies. Go to socials, after like 10 socials, you start to get to know people. I got to know Derek I think just because he's the ED director and I'm the CX director, so we had to talk to each other this semester. And we had to set up a few director meetings to figure out the CX curriculum, and that's where I kind of met him. And then a lot of SAAS people just kind of reach out to you and be like, Hi, how's it going? I'm like, Hello, back. And that's a good way to do it.
Which SAAS value means the most to you?
Community. We're in a pandemic. I'm alone. SAAS is the one who has the most socials, I'm gonna be honest. And you know, I'll say community because we can hit the vulnerable keys right here because SAAS has made me more confident in a subject that I'm very insecure about, which is computer science, because I'm a big biology person, but I am trash at computer science. And SAAS has made me feel more confident in that because of the community and everybody's there to help you. There we go.
I see. Now we're gonna switch to more Berkeley-specific questions. Okay, the first one we have is what is your favorite class and why?
You know what, I'm gonna say 61A. It's really well done. The content is so hard, but everybody does everything they can to help you. Like for comparing it to chemistry, like Chem 1A, it's impossible to find anything on their website, it's impossible to get help. Nobody has office hours, or they have office hours, but they're really limited. And the content is easy, but they make the class so hard because they'll take points off for basically anything. Whereas in computer science, every few weeks they send out like a survey, asking how can we make this better? And they have constant office hours. The professors are really nice even though I had Hilfinger. Like there's so many operators, discussion sections, tutorial sections, CSM sections, there's about 100 sections you can take if you need more help. And really the course staff is like 100 people, I think it's like 80 or something. It's crazy. And so I think they're doing the best they can with the content they have. And that's why I respect the course. That's like, if you do well or if you try hard, you'll get a good score. It's not just like, we want you to leave CS; it's we want you to leave CS if you can't handle the content.
Who would you say is your favorite professor?
My favorite professor is my math professor Nicolai Reshetikhin. He sent out an email yesterday for April Fool's saying, "Hey, guys, so I have bad news. The math department has decided not to drop your lowest credit score and to make the final exam cumulative, instead of modular. Click here to see where you stand on the midterm curve." Because he hasn't sent out a curve yet for even midterm 1, everyone freaked out. He's going to give us extra credit if we watch The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He's gonna have a quiz at the end of the semester, which will give us extra credit.
All right, I guess I could be more creative with the next questions. So let's say if money or skill did not matter, what would you be? What would be your dream career or dream job?
I think I would be CEO of a pharmaceutical company. But that might be like, not a good one. OK, I want to be like Elon Musk. Yeah, because he is super, super rich. Everybody loves him. And he makes flame throwers that sell out immediately. He literally put a chip in a pig's brain. So, yeah, I want to do that. Because if I had his money, I would probably want to do work with allergies, I want to work with immunology and stuff like that. CRISPR is a really, really big thing with allergies right now. And so I want to be able to incorporate that and make a lot of money off that hopefully. But I love computer science and that stuff. So I feel like I'd want to be CEO at the top making a ton of money. So I wouldn't say pharmaceuticals. But allergies aren't pharmaceuticals. I don't know what that would be. Usually allergens and stuff are allocated to doctors, but I'm not going to be like the people who give up the medicines. So I would say pharmaceutical company. But that kind of will give me a bad rep. Because pharmaceutical companies are ruthless. I kind of want to be Elon Musk. Oh, cut the money part out so I can feel better. You can do a lot with them. If you see Elon Musk, he's had like 1012 different starships. He's literally just blowing them up one by one. NASA puts all their money into one, puts all their expertise into one, and they get one. And they don't blow it up most of the time. He's got so much money that he was like, I'm gonna start a space agency with no experience, no expertise, no good people. And I'm just gonna blow up ships until we get one that works.
What are you gonna do for this upcoming summer?
I don't know. It depends. It depends on if I get an internship, if like my dad and I are maybe planning on going to California to set up some stuff. Before I go to Berkeley, like, he lost my social security card. Stuff like that. And I don't have a driver's license at all, you can't get a driver's license till you're 18 in Sweden and I turned 18 a few months ago, but I haven't been able to go out and drive anywhere or do anything because of the pandemic. And the driver's test is in Swedish. And then my mom is planning if I don't get an internship, a month long trip to Italy. I think three weeks long and we're gonna stay in this little village near the beach. And we're just gonna be there for three weeks and I think she's gonna have to work a little bit of it. But that's the goal and then I'll see my family and stuff.