Humans of SymSys: Jenny Han

Jenny is a SymSys graduate ‘19 and coterm ‘21. She is building SYMSYS1 Through Science Fiction, a repository of science fiction short stories that are related to SymSys 1 (or Symbolic Systems in general). Contribute here! bit.ly/symsys-scifi

Who are you in a nutshell?

I did my undergrad in the learning track of SymSys, then took a gap year to work in Hong Kong and do research as a Fulbrighter in China this past February — I did not make it to China this year, as you might guess why!* Currently I'm back in school coterming in Computer Science, and I'm also having a blast TAing SYMSYS1. Outside of school, I like to bike around town, listen to Reply All the podcast, and attempt to train my brother's parakeet. Also ask me about my work with the design studio Next Shift Learning!

*reason being the pandemic! --added for future context by the SymSys Society.

Why SymSys?

I started out as a chemistry major! But then I went to a career fair and learned about the interdisciplinary majors: Human Biology, Earth Systems, STS, Symbolic Systems, etc., and I knew instantly that I was going to major in one of these. 

I remember sitting in bed after the career fair mulling over the options, but to be honest, it took a while for me to understand what SymSys was. I had a friend in my freshman dorm, Sandhini, who really pitched it to me, and eventually, I chose Symbolic Systems because I was interested in learning about how people learn.

What is your concentration and why?

In undergrad, I was drawn to the learning concentration because I have wanted to be a public educator since I was in the first grade. It just happened that the courses I wanted to take in psychology and education lent themselves to the learning concentration. I also got to think a lot about designing for equity, especially when it comes to computer science education and learning technologies. 

What’s your favorite SymSys-related class that you’ve taken?

EDUC 236: Beyond Bits and Atoms (no longer at Stanford), which was an introduction to designing learning technologies. This was such a formative class for me because it combined a rigorous introduction to learning theories with hands-on experiences in the makerspace with projects in the community. 

It showed me what was possible within a dedicated and thoughtful learning community: everyone in that class was there to learn with each other rather than for a grade, and I have very fond memories of staying up late in the makerspace with other classmates munching on snacks and talking about the readings. My group got to travel to Norway with others in the class to present at the Interaction Design and Children conference that summer, which was a nice perk too.

This class is probably tied with Language and Thought, which I took with Michael Frank while in BOSP Santiago. Linguistic relativity?? Mindblowing.

Are you involved in research? If so, what are you working on?

I work with the Stanford HCI research group as well as the Transformative Learning Technologies Lab at Columbia. 

Storycoder, a project that I worked on as a research assistant for my mentor Griffin Dietz (co-advised by James Landay and Hyo Gweon), was recently accepted to the ACM CHI conference! The project involved designing a voice-based app for pre-literate learners to engage with computational concepts.

What is one piece of advice you'd like to offer to younger students?

Take non-SYMSYS courses too; you have the space for it! When I think about the courses that I took which altered my world view, I think of courses in Urban Studies, Art Studio, Human Biology as much as I think of courses from my actual program sheet.

Also, go to office hours. You don't need to have anything prepared before you go. You can bring your work. There's no such thing as a stupid question when you need help. As someone who is now a TA, I wish I had internalized that myself as a student.

Coolest topic that you’re excited about right now?

I'm excited about designing meaningful projects with code that are beginner-friendly. Currently, I'm co-designing a new assignment for the SYMSYS1 course which involves building a Twitter bot using context-free grammar. 

More broadly, I'm excited about the history of the internet. It's fascinating to read about what the future of the internet USED to look like and then to juxtapose that with the ugliest parts of the internet that we have to reckon with today. I want to be able to find ways to bring the sort of tinkering and low-fi playfulness that used to exist on the internet back to the present. 

(Some related inspirations include Jia Tolentino's essay "The I in the Internet" and Social Computing, the CS course taught by Michael Bernstein.)

Future plans?

To be honest, I'm not 100% positive! I do plan on getting a teaching credential to teach and develop curriculum for computer science education. I'm also interested in contributing to out-of-school learning experiences, from museums to Wikipedia to edtech apps.