Computer Vision News - July 2018

right? You’re the luckiest if there is also a demand for what you are doing. I would say that it’s about balancing. Maybe it’s an art of how to find something that you enjoy and, at the same time, you are good at. Sometimes you have to pay the price of doing something that you love so much that you can’t let go. I think if you have second thoughts, you should really try to talk to many people in that particular doubtful area that you are at. I found that the most useful thing whenever you are going through something, you are not alone. So many people have experienced that. Just talk to people, and collect your data points. Go about making a meaningful and significant decision by having prior knowledge. It’s okay to doubt. It’s absolutely fine to not to know what you want to do. Everyone around me has been like that. It’s just that I have been super lucky that I knew what I wanted to do from early on. Did you see other students working with you that had second thoughts? Everyone… I’ve had so many close friends that have dropped out of their PhD. I’ve had friends that have dropped out of college. I’ve had friends who, right now, they got a PhD. They got a job, but say that they don’t like computer science. This happens all the time. I do try to do my best to help people make the right decisions for themselves, but this is very personal, right? Even the idea of should I get a PhD or not in the AI world is very personal. It really depends on what you want to do, if you’re super passionate about research. It sounds like you are extremely passionate about this subject. Yes! What is your second biggest passion? In life? If I wasn’t doing AI research, in an alternate universe, or maybe when I somehow get to a position where I could do this, I would have been Anthony Bourdain. I’m so sorry that he’s gone now. Ah, cooking… I always said that I would have been a chef, traveled, and worked… and explore history and culture through food and understood humanity through food. Tell me something about Iranian people that we don’t know. In the US, people don’t know much. I think through the lens of media, and this is changing a lot with a younger population of Americans, it is a totally different perspective. I think on average, not in major cities of the US, but people have this image of Iran. I’ll tell you what I know: warmth and hospitality. That’s a good characterization. I think you know this too: women in Iran, in terms of university graduates, actually there are more women than men. They have a majority. There are higher percentage of women. We see it also in our community. Yes, in vision, I’m sure. There are many Iranian women. That’s something that Tuesday 17 Nasrin Mostafazadeh