Heeba Kariapper

Heeba Kariapper is a senior at UB and, like a lot of college seniors, she’s not sure what will come next. But Heeba will have options—she’s a Computer Science major with a certificate in Data-Intensive Computing and a minor in English. She’s also involved in coordinating UB Hacking, UB’s annual hackathon, and UB’s chapter of Scientista, among other creative and academic pursuits. She’s interested in finding innovative ways to apply the principles of computer science in the humanities.

“I was involved with this project creating a digital archive for the modernist poet Marianne Moore,” Heeba said. “I’m fascinated by the potential role digital technology has in art. It can provide humans with a new perspective through things like sentiment analysis and natural language processing.”

We asked Heeba to tell us about a day in the life of a busy student, and share some of her technology tips for success.

Like most students, Heeba’s schedule varies from semester to semester. She uses the flexibility of technology—particularly eduroam Wi-Fi—to work where it makes sense to work.

“My place of roosting is now Davis Hall, because there are all these open spaces. I can find some friends on the 3^rd floor, where the Computer Science department is. I’ll hang out a little there and then go to the 2^nd floor and find a quiet space to plug in and get to work.

“During the day I’m paying attention to email, because that’s the main way professors communicate. Google Calendar [included with UBmail for students] is a godsend! I work really well with color, so my calendar has a lot of separate, color-coded calendars. I really like to see visually what I have to do.”

“I’m definitely a proponent of writing things down. It helps with remembering. I use a Surface Pro and OneNote to write my notes. OneNote has this infinite growing panel, so your notes can spread out, and you can connect ideas in a way that’s tangential to how the mind works.

"Starting to use OneNote was eye-opening, because I realized I didn’t have to have a linear notebook. Now I have a notebook for each class with different tabs and pages. I have all these colors and images that are all connected—you can even embed video or voice recordings.

“I even ended up using my notebook in one of my presentations for my research project, because it’s so visual and illustrative.”

Another benefit of OneNote: all your notes are backed up in the cloud.

“There some security in having things backed up in the cloud,” Heeba said. “I know I’m not going to lose it.”

If you’d like to share your tips for using technology to stay organized and accomplish goals with the UB community, send an email to ubit-communication@buffalo.edu.