Meet a Tutor: Neil Shankar

Meet a Tutor: Neil Shankar

Neil Shankar

EECS student at UC Berkeley

https://medium.com/@thats_so_neil

Tell us a little about yourself…

I’m 6 foot 6 and I don’t play basketball, I love indie movies and jazz music, and I watch Jimmy Kimmel every night. Starting this fall, I’m studying computer science at UC Berkeley.

When did you first start learning computer science?

I bought a book on HTML when I was in 7th or 8th grade because my older sister had just taken a web programming class, and watching her make websites made me want to learn to code.

Do you have any favorite programs or projects that you’ve built?

I’ve programmed mini satellites to operate autonomously aboard the International Space Station. The mini satellites are called SPHERES. I worked on them first as a competitor for Zero Robotics. I competed in the annual high school competition and then in a competition open to the public, and both times I made it to the finals and got to see my code run in space! I was relatively new to programming, and being able to watch astronauts in the International Space Station run my program on a satellite in zero gravity was hugely influential in motivating me to continue pursuing computer science.

Favorite ice cream flavor?

Cookie dough, hands down.

Fun facts about you?

When I’m not coding I do web and graphic design, both for the Undergraduate Marketing Association here at Cal, and freelance. I also play chess in my free time and love watching TV and indie movies.

Words of advice for the next generation of coders?

Learning to code will change the way you think. As I became more involved in computer science, I began thinking of actionable ways to improve things. My mindset shifted from “This could be better,” or “Someone should make that an app” to “How can I make this better?” and “How would this work as an app?” Once you start coding, you’ll begin using computer science to automate tasks in your other classes, and you’ll approach learning from a problem-solving standpoint.