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Aaron Silverstein -- Princeton High School -- 11th grade
September 04, 2018 By Aaron Silverstein

Two days after sitting at my wooden desk and taking my final exams, I found myself overlooking the mountainous and fog-covered skyline of Kathmandu, Nepal.

I had spent my previous eight summers at a sleepaway camp in Maine, and I had aged out of it. So, in a span of an hour or two sometime in March or April, I went online and googled "Cool summer programs for high schoolers," read a description of a three week expedition to Nepal, and basically just signed up. I wanted an adventure.

And I sure got one. I will definitely remember it for the rest of my life.

My best friend and I, along with eight other high schoolers from across the U.S., had an absolutely amazing time. Our first week was spent in the capital city of Kathmandu, where we visited Hindu and Buddhist temples and monasteries and developed a connection with the vibrant city and the incredibly kind people within it. That first week made me realize something that would be true for the remainder of the trip: the people of Nepal were amiable and accepting. They truly welcomed outsiders like us and helped us adjust to their way of life: their food, song, dance, dress and customs.

I became even more immersed in the Nepali lifestyle in week two. We took a seven hour bus ride from Kathmandu to the rural village of Nurakowt. During this ride, we had to get out of the bus twice so roads that didn't exist prior could literally be built to enable us to get to our destination. But before we got to the village, we took a pit stop at a rice planting festival that another nearby village was having to celebrate the harvest. We crossed a terrifying suspension bridge and were welcomed with open arms to the festival by the locals. We didn't speak their language and they didn't speak ours, but they motioned us to this huge pool of mud, where rice would be planted later that day. The next hour was pure happiness: we danced and tackled each other in the mud, the locals teaching us Nepali dance moves while we all dove headfirst into the brown, warm slosh. That was an experience I'll replay in my head over and over again.

Our week in the village was awesome. In the mornings, we taught 16 and 17 year old Nepali students English. I lead a lesson about emotions and feelings, and I also learned some of the Nepali language, in addition to making great friends in the process. In the afternoons, we hauled cement, made mortar and put down bricks to help build new buildings for the village, which took significant damage along with the rest of the country from the 2015 earthquake. The people in the village were so welcoming and appreciative, which made it all so much more enjoyable. Even though I was teaching lessons in the village, it was me who learned the biggest one: the power of a strong community. These people didn’t have much, but what they did have was an incredibly strong network of family. The people of Nurakowt, whether they were in the classroom or on the soccer field or at worksites , truly cared for one another. Them allowing us to experience this community feeling alongside them was so meaningful.

My trip concluded with a five day trek on the Annapurna Circuit. Seeing over a dozen huge waterfalls flowing on different parts of the mountain's face at the same time was unbelievable. On the second day of the trek, we summitted the 10,000 foot Poon Hill, and I was literally in a cloud. We hiked for about five hours each day, and it was overwhelming when I finally saw civilization at the end. It was the perfect ending to an amazing trip.

As I said before, I wanted an adventure. And I am so glad I decided to go on this trip. Going to another country for a few weeks over the summer is something I highly recommend for a high school student. Also, many of these programs offer scholarships and financial aid; two of the eight students on my trip had their tuition paid in full by the program. It is an excellent way to experience a new culture, make great friends, help others, and push yourself out of your comfort zone. When you sit down to take your final exams in June, dream of seeing a part of the world you never thought you would.

The Program's Website: https://www.theroadlesstraveled.com/

I received 50 community service hours for my work in the village.

Michaela Guo -- Princeton High School -- 11th Grade
September 04, 2018 By Michaela Guo

This summer, I learned again and again the power of inclusion.

It's relatively easy to feel comfortable in a room where virtually everyone looks like you. But once you step into a room where there's nobody who looks like you, you start to get uncomfortable and a little less confident, feeling the pressure of representing everyone who looks like you. And it's easy to exit because you feel like you went into the wrong room.

AI4ALL is a summer program that works to change that by increasing diversity in artificial intelligence. For three weeks, I lived with 31 other rising juniors from all across the country. We explored neural networks and various machine learning algorithms, applying what we learned in groups to four real-world applications: computer vision, natural language processing, the Internet of Things, and the Fragile Families Challenge(using big, complicated, messy data, predicting certain aspects of a child's future, and improving the lives of disadvantaged children). It was amazing to be surrounded by people from vastly different backgrounds who all connected through an enthusiasm to learn.

Most fascinating for me was the heavy emphasis on ethics surrounding AI and its social impact, discussing accountability issues, privacy risks, and the consequences of a lack of inclusion. If the developers of technology are of a select group, then the technology will only properly serve that set of people because the creators simply will not have the perspectives (and thus won't notice needs) that a diverse set of people will. AI is at the intersection of all fields; it’s applicable everywhere from health to law. So if it's learning to be biased, what will happen to all the decisions we trust it to make? It seemed to me like robots couldn't really have prejudice — they're programmed machines, after all. But already, they show bias; take, for example, a "beauty contest robot" that learned off of training data to prefer lighter-skinned models. And with automation and globalization advancing so rapidly, when we don't provide everyone with access and opportunity to understand, use, and develop the technology that shapes our world, then we exacerbate economic and social disparities. The machines of our future will reflect the biases of the current creators; we have to think about not just who technology is working for, but who it can and will work against.

I learned to be more cognizant of the risks and ethical issues that always come with the benefits of any technology. The threats of “Terminator” takeovers are not those we should be most concerned about when it comes to machine learning and technology; we should be questioning the massive economic, social, and political impact technology has. Purposefully including those that often get pushed out of or don't even get access to a field like AI is so so vital. We shape the technology that will shape us and our future, so we need the diversity of perspective and background in every step of development — something that can often only be achieved through conscious inclusion.

The program: https://ai4all.princeton.edu/

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October 12, 2009