How to Navigate High School: Advice from a UC Berkeley Student

Why did you choose to study in America?

I like the vibe in the US because there’s a lot of freedom. I like freedom of speech, I like being liberal about the way I think, so I like the way America is. I planned to apply to America only and I did exactly that.

Why UC Berkeley?

I chose to go to UC Berkeley partly because I didn’t get any other better schools, for computer science at least. UC Berkeley is the best computer science school I got into. I like the community and the vibe there. They also have some undergrad research and are currently doing a lot of computer science research that I’m interested in such as neuroscience-inspired computer science and machine learning.

When did you decide you wanted to go to top universities in America?

I started shifting my aim towards the end of 10th grade. In 9th grade I didn’t really care about anything, which affected my GPA, but I changed myself in 10th grade. That was the start of everything. 

Does that mean that for students with a low GPA in 9th grade, they can still pick it up?

Yes definitely. As long you try, you haven’t failed yet. I had a 3.7 GPA in 9th grade, so in 10th grade I took more AP classes, actually studied for them, and did my homework. After that my grade was a lot better, it became over 4 with the AP courses. It’s definitely possible to reinvent your mentality.

What are your projects?

In 10th grade I started research on implementing deep learning algorithms for the detection of lung cancer, pneumonia, tuberculosis, cardiomegaly, basically a lot of lung carthologies. You use an X-ray image which helps radiologists with the screening process. I went to the Central Chest Institute of Thailand. The radiologists’ process was slow and often had mistakes, which was detrimental to patients in need of high quality medical care. That’s exactly what happened to my aunt when I was in 7th grade and that stuck with me a lot. So I didn’t want to see people having to suffer, not just the patients themselves but also their families. I really think it’s important to help these radiologists who are overworked – we need help in detecting and screening first-stage and abnormalities. That’s why I started my first research. 

AP psychology also inspired my second research. I was studying about EEGs (electroencephalograms) in psychology and had this random idea that popped into my head and thought: what if we can use EEGs for something? I went back home and that very same day I saw a car crash right in front of me. I did research and found out that 20% of road accidents in Thailand are caused by drowsy driving because people are so overworked. Drivers who deliver long-distance packages, they only get 3 hours of sleep and they drive, causing accidents dangerous to themselves and also other people. So I wanted to make a change in this aspect of Thai society. We have the 2nd highest road fatality rate in the world. So what I wanted to do was to use EEGs and computer science to create a utilizable device that can be worn anytime to detect drowsiness and awaken the drivers. EEGs are electroencephalograms. They measure brain waves, what we do at Vistech is I use these signals and extract important features and run them through machine learning algorithms to detect drowsiness, which is scaled on a 1-9 scale. Above 7 is dangerous. I did this after 11th grade after I completed my first project. 

So 1 is lung cancer detection. The 2nd one is drowsy driving detection. 

How can we identify a problem we want to initiate a project around?

I think it’s easiest to find a problem that’s close to you. You have to start questioning the way things are in your life. You don’t just passively live life without making any change. There are always problems in this world no matter how insignificant they seem to you. The first thing you need to find is the problem you want to solve, then you try to tackle it. After you fix it you gain so much experience – you will eventually find so many problems and be able to fix them all. There are so many problems in society. You have to find small problems near you and create a project [based on them].

Should we start with asking questions?

When I was young I always asked hundreds of questions on the way home. Why is the sky blue? If the car turns using the back wheel what will happen? Keep asking questions and you’ll be able to find that passion of yours. One of my life changing experiences was: I asked my uncle why are rainbows curved? He took me to the computer and introduced me to Google. He taught me how to search for things. So I started searching up a lot of things. We have the internet, the library, people in our school, teachers, friends – so many resources around us just waiting for you to utilize them. Learn to utilize these resources and always write down questions. 

How did you become so good at computer science?

I was actually really bad at coding in general until 10th grade. I only had basic programming skills. So I went to Thammasat [University] and I talked to a professor, and I had to build everything up from scratch. The hardest part about it was not just the coding part, it was also the math. Math was multivariable calculus and I was a 10th grader so I didn’t know anything about it. So I did a lot of research, online classes, programming practice, studied machine learning processes, audited a course at Thammasat. It was overall really tiring but it was useful.

How do you balance all of this with social life and life in general?

It’s not necessarily about balancing everything. It’s about finding someone that understands what you’re going through. And find that specific group [of friends] that doesn’t take a toll on you. You don’t have to be a social butterfly, just find 4-5 people that you can talk to about everything. You don’t need the whole society to understand you, you just need a few people that are important to you.

Have you ever failed so badly in your life that you lost all hope?

When I was young, I practiced piano about 6-12 hours a day. I went for a competition and got 4th place in the first round. I felt like the whole world was crashing down on me, I cried the whole night. I put so much effort into it but I still failed. But my mom said to me: it’s not the height of success that is your true success, but it’s how you get up from the lowest point in your life. That’s true success. You know you failed, but you are strong enough to pick yourself up and fight again. That’s the most important thing. Because you will meet failure a lot. All these things are trying to push you down. But if you are able to stand up and fight them, that’s true success.

What inspires you to change/improve?

If you think that you’re not the best version of you, you should always make yourself better, always look for ways to improve. That was my mentality back then. I had friends who were supportive of me improving myself. Without them, I wouldn’t be able to change. People are the most important thing in your life. They can influence you for the better. You should have good friends, but also don’t forget to have bad friends. It’s true. If you’re only friends with good people, you will never know how the bad people can harm you. You need to know how bad people think and how you will defend yourself from being one of them and being a victim to their scandals and schemes.

What advice do you have for people who want to change themselves but are scared of change?

Change your mindset. It’s very simple. Change will always bring about a better thing, no matter how bad that change is. Even if your dad dies, your aunt dies, all of that, instead of considering them as bad and letting them take you down, you should use that opportunity to change. Being scared of what will happen after change occurs? You have to know that change is inevitable. You can’t prevent life from changing at all. Life is not biased – neither positive nor negative. That’s called the internal locus of control, from psychology. There are 2 views: internal and external locus of control. Internal is you believe you can control yourself. Whatever is going around you, no matter how bad it is, you can control it. You keep it under control. External – life is so bad, God doesn’t love me. It’s really not like that. You are the judge of everything around you. That’s how you change. You need to have that mentality. 

Do you think all the sacrifices you had to make in high school were worth it in the end?

Yes definitely. I think that it’s like carbon. If you put a lot of pressure on it, it becomes diamond. That’s what my mom says a lot. So I think that these pressures and challenges improve you as a person. During that time, it was so tiring but towards the end when you look back at it, you see that you’ve proved yourself. This is what I’ve accomplished. This is how I’ve changed. It means so much and you should be proud of yourself if you decide to take that first step out – never look back towards your comfort zone. Sacrifice anything you need to as long as you think that you’ll become a better person. But don’t sacrifice your academic integrity or ethical standards to achieve anything. Always keep your ideals, keep them close to your heart and push through. Effort is tiring. But as long as you are becoming a better person and everything you are doing has meaning to society, it’s all worth it.