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Mark Yatskar by Cascadilla Gorge.

Lindsay France/University Photography

Major: Computer science
College: Engineering
Hometown: Belmont, Calif.

For its strength in engineering, in particular electrical engineering and computer science.

I spent the vast majority of my free time dancing and creating dances. I like to think of this as the other side of my coin. I like how the dance studio starts empty and dark and from that you can imagine anything and create it. You add light, sound, movement and sometimes an audience, and I think control of so many features is empowering. In many ways this is also something that attracted me to computer science over the other engineering disciplines. Computer science comes with fewer rules about what is possible.

While at Cornell, I started a company called Coursetopia.com junior year and took a semester off from school to develop it. Coursetopia is a Web site that was launched at seven institutions and provided class scheduling and class searching services to students. The project started with my roommate and I talking about the inadequacies of similar services; one day we went out to dinner and said, "Let's do it." The team grew to four Cornell students, and I think this was a tremendously valuable experience from a technical and entrepreneurial perspective. I learned what it was like to manage a company and build a piece of software that many people depend on. I think the most important part of this startup experience was learning how to keep a team together working on one goal.

An introductory course in artificial intelligence that I took freshman year taught by Professor Lillian Lee. I came to Cornell interested in robotics and as such thought I was going to be an electrical and computer engineering major. But, after taking this course, I became intrigued by cognitive science. I audited courses in human development and linguistics and ultimately switched my major to computer science. Then I began to do research in natural language with Professor Lee, analyzing the language used on the Simple Wikipedia. Professor Lee's course in artificial intelligence stimulated my interests and doing research with her helped solidify my interests in grad school and research.

Working with the dance department here and being involved in their main stage show has afforded me an amazing ability to travel. Junior year, I was able to go to New Orleans to perform excerpts from "Spoglia," an original work created by the dance faculty here. That was some time after Katrina, and it was an eye-opening experience. By chance we met with another dancer in the area, who showed us around some the poorest and still completely unrepaired areas of New Orleans. That was a really important time for me.

I am going into a Ph.D. program in computer science in the fall. I really like doing research in natural language processing. Ultimately, I plan to create intellectual property and manufacture happiness.