It is not every day that a Rocky Hill High School student gets a front-row seat into one of the world’s top academic institutions, all while still being a high school student.
That was the case for senior Marvin Odobashi. This past summer he attended the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Beaver Works Quantum Software summer program, exploring this innovative and more efficient means of computing in comparison to traditional computer science.
He was immediately hooked as soon as he heard about the program saying, “The program was perfect for what I want to do as I plan to study computer science and physics in college.”
But just getting accepted was not a walk in the park; the senior had to go through an extensive pre-application process to get into this program that accepts students based on factors of merit.
He had to work through multiple prerequisite courses, including one on algebra two, coding in Python, and a Github course. For Odobashi, they were rather rudimentary but tedious nonetheless.
He admitted that he had some degree of second-guessing, considering he had to do all of this work without any certainty of being accepted and while knowing that the program receives high achieving applicants from all over the nation and world: “At some points, I was wondering if I was wasting my time, but I was learning interesting stuff regardless. The information was helpful whether I made it in or not.”
“It was very exciting and even a bit surprising [when I got in], because you know, it’s a competitive program,” Odobashi said. “Since the subject of the course I was applying for was exactly the kind of thing that interested me, opening that email and seeing ‘congratulations you’ve been accepted’ was extremely exciting and I couldn’t wait to get started with it.”
As for the course itself, despite being virtual, the experience went smoothly for the senior.
“It was a bit weird not having a teacher in front of you. But if I had had a course with physical aspects, it would be harder.”
Being virtual even presented some positive opportunities, such as being able to meet like-minded students from Turkey to Chicago and everywhere in between.
After going through weeks of lectures, guest speakers, and assignments, the course culminated to a research based assignment where, in small groups, students looked through published journals and studies on the theory of quantum computing and sought to turn the information into an applicable program.
Odobashi’s group created a program that sought to estimate amplitudes which has significant applications in the financial world, such as in market research.
This challenge of taking something theoretical and turning it into something tangible is the type of problem solving that Odobashi loves, and something that he hopes to continue into college and beyond.
