Alumni Spotlight: Darian Lee '24

What were your major and minor?
I was a triple major in Russian, linguistics, and statistics with a minor in computer science.

What are you up to now?
I just got accepted into a Natural Language Processing (NLP) M.S. program at UC Santa Cruz! I plan to concentrate my research on machine translation and multilingual NLP.

How did your experience at UC Davis prepare you for the next step in your academic/professional journey?
I plan to work mostly with Russian-English translation and Russian language models. The extra Russian practice I got with my major will help me immensely!  

What's your advice for someone considering your major?
Reach out to the Russian-speaking community at UC Davis. Practice Russian with your professors during office hours. Make your own flashcards with the words YOU want to learn and that you use in your daily life! The language-learning process is different for everyone and the faculty in the Russian program are here to help you as much as possible during the journey. But it is also your responsibility to figure out what learning method works best for you, find ways to practice on your own that go beyond the scope of the material covered in class, and let professors know how they can best support you. 

What was your favorite part of your undergraduate program here?
I love how empathetic and personable everyone in the program is, especially the professors. In my statistics major and computer science minor, the atmosphere can get stressful and sometimes negative. But Russian classes are often a lot more positive. The professors are all super nice and genuinely care about you. The other students are friendly and there are more chances to communicate and make friends. Russian classes always feel like a nice relaxing break in my school day that I genuinely look forward to. 

What are you most proud of from your undergrad experience?
Graduating with a triple major and a minor! 

Do you have a professor or a class you want to shout out?
I think Jenny Kaminer's classes (all of them!) are super interesting if you like learning about Russian culture and history. If you are trying to improve your Russian speaking and writing, I'd recommend Russian Composition. This was the class that I feel challenged me and improved my language abilities the most out of all the Russian courses I took at Davis. 

What were you involved in outside of class (clubs, internships, etc.)?
I was in the Slavic Association club (you should join–there are lots of opportunities to practice your Russian)! I also worked as a calculus and Python tutor on campus at the Academic Assistance and Tutoring Center and helped teach an online iOS app development course.