Throwback to my childhood, my mathematical journey started from learning how to use an abacus. It is a traditional Chinese calculator. I used it to learn how to count numbers, from one-digital addition to hundred-digital addition. Every time I flip the beads of the abacus quickly and figure out the correct answer, I feel very excited and happy. I didn’t know it was math at the time.
After I went to school, I started to study mathematics systematically, learn new calculation methods, and solve various mathematical problems with calculation. I love solving problems and the satisfaction it brings to me afterwards. However, at that time, my understanding of mathematics itself was only exercises in textbooks and Sudoku games. I didn’t know anything about the wide application of mathematics in real life until I learned more about data science.
Data science uses mathematics as a tool to analyse huge amounts of real-world data. We are now living in an era of comprehensive development of data and information. With the advancement and maturity of science and technology, large amounts of data have become within reach. Big data is like a treasure chest, containing a lot of valuable information. Mathematics is the key to open it.
In this summer research project, I explored the rainfall and temperature data in various places from the last century until now under John’s supervision and applied the statistical method to find how the climate variables changed over time. Finding which location has a significant increase or decrease after years is useful and important for investigating the potential influencing factors.
This project gave me an opportunity to research and analyse data independently. I learned to clean raw data using mathematical methods and make trends clearly visible. Also, I have a better understanding of statistical models that are applied to make a confident conclusion. Moreover, in the process, my independent research skills are developed in different aspects, such as project management and organising skills.
Thanks to all the support received during the three-year study at the University of South Australia, it brings me more confidence. In this year, I decided to peruse an honours degree of Data Science at the University of Sydney. I will apply my data analytic skills in bioinformatics field and try to analyse relationships between features using single-cell data.
Shurui Yi
University of South Australia
