Senior+Landon+Palmer+%28far+right%29+standing+in+front+of+Sparkcognition%E2%80%99s+logo+with+other+students+participating+in+LISD%E2%80%99s+COOL+week.+

Senior Landon Palmer (far right) standing in front of Sparkcognition’s logo with other students participating in LISD’s COOL week.

Landon Palmer

Colorful codes and algorithms danced across the screen in front of him as he tried desperately to understand what they meant. People that love learning about the same things he does stand next to them, as they listen to experts explain what each code meant, and how they could apply them to the real world to create a healthy, and safe-living society.

Senior Landon Palmer shadowed a computer science and analytics company, Sparkcognition, as a part of the districts Career Opportunities On Location Week. COOL week gives seniors at Leander ISD high schools the opportunity to experience the professions they are interested in with real-life companies.

“I plan on pursuing something in the field of computer science,” Palmer said. “I knew I wanted to do it in college. I told Ms. Spradling about that and she then hooked me up with something in software. I then verified and told her Sparkcognition was a good place.”

Palmer said at first, shadowing the company was a little intimidating because he didn’t fully understand some of the things they were showing him. Eventually, he got the hang of it and was reminded why exactly he wanted to pursue this as a career.

“So their whole company has a lot of different departments,” Palmer said. “The one that I chose was called Natural Language Processing, which teaches computers to read words in sentences in context, so understanding the contextual effects of words.

Sparkcognition is a company that delves into the field of software engineering. They specialize in what’s known as “Machine Learning”, which is teaching a computer to learn and think like a human.  

“They teach machines and computers to do things automatically through their algorithms, and I know they do it really well, from what I can tell,” Palmer said. “They apply the advanced algorithms with neural networks to improve trivial tasks that humans would do. It’s pretty neat stuff.”

Palmer said his favorite part about COOL week was learning about the office culture.

“I really thought it was going to be more formal with suits and ties, but people just came in with hoodies,” Palmer said. “Anyone that wants to do a COOL week experience, I would highly recommend it. It’s definitely worth your time.”

Vandegrift Voice • Copyright 2024 • FLEX WordPress Theme by SNOLog in

Comments (0)

All Vandegrift Voice Picks Reader Picks Sort: Newest

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *