Zachary Francis sitting in an alleyway with a staircase behind him

Zachary's Story

Zachary Francis '23 was in Singapore during the summer of 2022 researching robotic grippers and figured that academia might not be the road he'll be taking. 

"I worked in the realm of computer vision in order to create a neural net to calculate the pose estimation. Because most of my work was in the realm of computer science, primarily computer vision, the solid fundamentals of computer science that I learned at MIT greatly assisted me. Most of the skills that I developed were in the realm of artificial intelligence programming and the Robot Operating System. This internship and my previous one, though, have made me reflect and reconsider my plans to go to grad school. About halfway through my internship, I realized that I do not enjoy research, especially when it is purely theoretical. If an opportunity for doing research with this same lab came up later, I would consider taking the position, but not if it were a different research group." 

  • Zachary Francis crouching down in front of the NUS Engineering sign in Singapore with trees in the background
I was very culturally enriched by going to Singapore. Going into the program, I had very few expectations of what the country would be like, so I was pleasantly surprised by almost everything I had come across.
Zachary Francis '23
Zachary Francis leaning against a railing of the Singapore airport at night with palm trees in the background and light lit up along the path and a lit up windmill in the floor below
Major & Class Year
Mechanical and Electrical Engineering '23
Location
Singapore
MISTI Program
Internship
MISTI Host
National University of Singapore
Next Story

Christine's Story