(Photo courtesy of Priyanshu Agrawal)
Incoming University of Connecticut freshman Priyanshu Agrawal has watched over the last year as his school district and other education systems struggled to find their footing amid the coronavirus pandemic.
And now, Priyanshu’s observations and reflections on this unprecedented time have won him Top Class Actions’ $3,500 COVID-19 & Education Scholarship.
Students competing for the scholarship were asked to write up to 1,000 words addressing the changes COVID-19 brought to education, as well as what steps need to be taken to reform the current education system to best cope with a potential future global crisis.
Schools around the world faced many challenges when it came to COVID-19, from how to handle students who took advantage of the situation by skipping classes to managing coursework from a technological standpoint, Priyanshu wrote in his essay.
“For many students, the period of online learning was simply a lost year of school,” he wrote.
However, Priyanshu believes the schools were doing the best they could, even though things were chaotic.
“I think they had limited information, so that was the main problem,” and they weren’t aware such a pandemic could even happen before it arrived, Priyanshu told Top Class Actions. “[I]n my opinion, the only thing they really could have done better is be prepared for such a pandemic or this type of event before the pandemic happened, but obviously no one really expected it to be like this.”
Priyanshu, who learned about the essay contest from his mother, was able to have a fairly normal high school graduation, though it took place outdoors. He recently moved into his dorm at the University of Connecticut, where he will study computer science.
He became interested in the subject in the sixth grade and learned to code. Priyanshu credits this inspiration to his father, who was a software engineer, as well as to his own love of playing video games — particularly mobile games such as Clash of Clans.
“I wanted to make my own video games, so that was always inspiration to learn how to code.”
However, his interest has moved well beyond gaming and into the realm of RNA sequencing and artificial intelligence.
In Priyanshu’s opinion, while there are a lot of exciting things happening in robotics and A.I., the most exciting is increased automation, such as self-driving cars and the automation of delivery drones.
“I think there’s just a lot of potential to improve the quality of life by automating certain tasks that are sort of tedious,” he said. “And then I think there’s potential to focus manpower more on other areas and other types of more creative jobs than those tasks … .”
In his essay, Priyanshu wrote about his participation in a research project under the mentorship of Dr. Sheida Nabavi at the University of Connecticut in which he “applied A.I. to the field of biology by using machine learning to analyze RNA-sequencing data, which can help biologists further study the human body.”
The COVID-19 pandemic and vaccine have brought more conversation about RNA to the public, and Priyanshu said that may have led to a bit of a shift in his thinking, as well.
“It kind of piqued my interest more in biology and that … side of technology,” Priyanshu said.
“I wasn’t really aware of the technological advancements that were happening in that area until COVID actually occurred, and COVID happening sort of got me more curious about that area and got me more interested in looking into it, whereas before it wasn’t really my interest or my focus.”
While Priyanshu is still planning to major in computer science, he’s not sure where that will lead him beyond his education.
“I definitely will be considering careers that apply computer science to biology, as well.”
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