Data is Power
“I am normally a very excited person, but in big situations, I am very calm and fearless,” says international student Sibel Sezen (B.P.S. ’21). Originally from Turkey, Sezen says she had to stay focused on her education to come as far as she has. “I am the fourth child of a farmer’s family with five children. Since women and education were not given much importance in the village where I spent my childhood, my family and I constantly struggled for my education. Even though we were just going to study as girls, we couldn’t come home late, we couldn’t meet up with a male student, and we couldn't be sent to study in a distant city. I was the first woman in the village to study at university and have a career.”
Sezen completed her bachelor’s degree in interdisciplinary studies at New York Tech in 2021 and was recognized as the highest academic achiever in interdisciplinary studies on the New York City campus. She is now continuing her education and pursuing an M.S. in data science. “Data is information, and information is power. But if we don’t know how to use the power we have, it won’t do us any good,” she says. “The idea of working on the data we have, making power available, and making life easier for people gives me great pleasure.”
According to Sezen, the possible uses for data analysis are limitless, and the field has the potential to help a lot of people. “With data, things that seemed impossible years ago can make life easier today in a very short time,” she says. “With COVID-19, bipolar disorders, weather forecasts, and so many other uses, data science operations do the impossible. All this excites me immensely.”
Sezen has found New York Tech to be a positive learning environment and calls her choice to attend the school “the best decision I’ve ever made in my life.” Although, she readily admits not every step has been easy. “In the finals of the Spring 2022 semester, I had a challenging machine learning project that ruined my final week. It was the first time I felt so challenged!” she says. “But the project taught me to manage time and stress by letting go of the part of the project that made me unhappy. I couldn’t finish everything for the presentation, but I learned a lot.”
Sezen is confident in her choice to study at New York Tech and her ability to make the most of her degree. “Ever since I started studying in this field at New York Tech, I’ve started to think more broadly,” she says. I believe that I will become a very successful data scientist with my enthusiasm, stability, and discipline.”
