Greetings from Switzerland! My name is Alice, and I am excited to share my experiences in Switzerland with you! I grew up in rural New Mexico and urban Ohio. Growing up, my family spoke Mandarin Chinese. Along with growing up in different regional cultures in the U.S., this gave me experiences in a different language, which sparked my interest in learning about languages and cultures abroad.
I started learning French in middle school, at around your current age. I love doing jigsaw puzzles, and learning French felt like assembling a jigsaw puzzle. Learning the numbers, pronouns, and verb conjugations was like putting together intricate pieces of a large puzzle. Since high school, I have wanted to have an immersive experience in a Francophone (French speaking) country. And now here we are for one year in Suisse Romande (the French-speaking region of Switzerland)!
In middle school, I also participated in Science Olympiad, which sparked my curiosity for science in engineering. In college, I decided to study electrical engineering, and now I am currently a PhD student in electrical and computer engineering in Texas. I research artificial intelligence algorithms for wearable technologies. We use data from wearables to understand human activities, like how a smartwatch can count the number of steps you take in a day.
