A UT CNS/CS admitted applicant, First-generation American-Italian, dual-passport-holder, STEM-focused student from a Texas public high school. Passionate about AI, technology, sustainability, theater arts, a healthy lifestyle, and giving back to the community through volunteering, mentoring, and advocacy.
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Obra D. Tompkins High School
SAT: 1550 (750 Reading & Writing, 800 Math)
Rank: 34/674 - Top 5%
GPA: 4.75 (Weighted) 4.00 (Unweighted)
AP Exams (9 taken, all scored 5/5): Computer Science A, Computer Science Principles, Statistics, Chemistry, English Language and Composition, Italian Language & Culture, (self-studied), US History, World History Modern, Human Geography
University of Texas Austin
Computer Science Entry-Level major; admitted and accepted the offer on February 2, 2023; admitted and accepted for Polymathic Scholars Honors on February 27, 2023
Robotics and AI; Introductory Linux usage, C++ and Arduino programming for robot animation; Dr. Justin Heart
Bocconi University, Milan, Italy
Bocconi Online Summer School for High School Students. Participation certificate for 48 total teaching hours: Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Lab; Prof. Riccardo Zecchina, BAI Computer Coding Lab with Python; Prof. Massimo Ballerini, BEMACS
I have taken 4 years of high school computer science courses, including AP Computer Science Principles, AP Computer Science A, Computer Science 3: Data Structures, and Computer Science Independent Study. This combined with outside computer science courses have given me experience with Java, Python, C++, Javascript, C#, Visual Basic, Processing, HTML, Scratch, and CSS.
This was the first large project I completed in my Computer Science Data Structures class. The assignment took me 2 weeks with both work at home and at school. This project mainly involved practice with threading, using update and render loops, practice creating a functional timer to manage how long the frog had to make it to the end, as well as the duration for turtle shells to sink and resurface.
Although this may have been the toughest project to code in my Computer Science Data Structures Course in terms of logic, it paid off in the end due to the experience it gave me. By throwing me in the deep end, this assignment significantly helped to ameliorate my understanding of recursion and storing/accessing data.
This was by far my favorite project as it delved into the very subject that I would like to specialize in with regards to computer science, artificial intelligence. With this assignment I gained even more experience with recursion through the minimax algorithm to not just find the optimal move based on the current board, but also by looking ahead at potential outcomes. I also incorporated alpha beta pruning to optimize the algorithm by decreasing the number of nodes it needed to analyze.
After having done some practice with implementing BFS and DFS search algorithms for portal mazes I began working on writing a Djikstras algorithm for a weighted undirectred graph. By combining some previous knowledge from my data structures course with my newly acquired understanding of Python I was able to create an algorithm that found the shortest path and its weight to each node from the starting node that enhanced my understanding of both data structures and coding in Python.
For our first project for our Computer Science Independent Study course, my partner, Stephan Kalugin, and I, attempted to use our newfound knowledge of Python as well as some work with Pygame to code a “push your luck” board game called Megaland. Though it went well at first we ended up running into a lot of trouble and logic errors in our code, mainly when it came to having to integrate our code, due to our lack of sufficient knowledge of pygame.
This project, which you are viewing now, was my first project for my second semester in my Independent Study Course in which I focused on Web Development. This fun project gave me experience with HTML, CSS, and Javascript that was essential in improving my web-development skills.
If there's a project, website or anything involving my skills in computer science, theatre, or even both, feel free to contact me at nicoosgnach@entouch.net. I'm available and will make time for any computer science projects, websites, or even theatre performances you may need.
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