My Thesis is the Bridge: Why I'm Pursuing Both Computer Science and social justice

Every time I tell someone I'm double-studying Computer Science and social justice, they hit me with the same look. That polite confusion. "So... you want to be a lawyer who codes?" Not exactly. The truth is simpler and more ambitious than that — I think the most interesting problems live at the intersection of technology and people. And I want to be fluent in both languages.

The Two Lenses

Computer Science gives me the ability to build. Algorithms, data structures, architectures — the raw materials of systems that scale. I can take an idea and turn it into something functional. That is power, and I respect it.

But it is incomplete power. Building something that works technically is not the same thing as building something that works for people. I have watched smart teams ship polished products that looked impressive in demos and still fell flat in the real world. The code was clean. The impact was zero.

That is where social justice comes in. It gives me the human layer — how laws, policies, and social structures shape real lives. How institutions operate when things are going well, and how they fail when pressure hits. How one decision in a room can ripple through families and neighborhoods that never got invited into the room.

Studying social justice trained me to ask harder questions before I start coding. Who benefits from this? Who gets left out? Who is carrying the hidden cost? A dataset can show behavior, but it cannot explain context by itself. Context comes from listening, history, policy, and lived realities that no dashboard captures on its own.

This is why I do not treat my majors like two separate tracks. I see them as two lenses pointed at the same target. Computer Science helps me build the system. Social justice helps me judge whether the system deserves to exist the way it does.

Where This Clicked

This dual-lens approach stopped being theoretical for me last summer. I spent nine weeks at Princeton's Velez CoLab through the National Science Foundation REU program, researching computational cognitive science. We studied a real tension in teamwork: the tradeoff between adapting to new information and coordinating with others.

The easiest way to picture it is a volleyball team. One player reads the play and reacts early, which can be smart. But if nobody else can adjust in time, people collide and the whole sequence breaks down. Individual adaptation helps until it breaks group coordination.

On the computer science side, we built and modified behavioral games to test how people made decisions under those conditions. We tuned variables, observed patterns, and analyzed where coordination held or failed. It was technical, structured, and deeply analytical.

On the social justice side, I kept coming back to a broader question: how do we design environments where people can adapt without the group falling apart? That is not only a lab question. It applies to classrooms, workplaces, organizations, communities, and public systems that need both flexibility and trust.

I had not expected my two majors to converge so clearly in a Princeton lab, but they did. That experience gave me language for what I had been feeling for a while. These are not parallel interests. They are one path viewed from two angles.

What I'm Actually After

I am not trying to become a pure software engineer. I am not trying to become a policy analyst who stays in theory. I want to build at the intersection, creating experiences and platforms that serve real people, guided by technical skill and grounded in how human systems actually work.

I have been doing intersection work long before I had a label for it. I built a swim coaching business from scratch that served more than a hundred families. The logistics had to be right, the training had to be effective, and the experience had to feel personal enough that parents trusted me with their kids.

I also produced live music events end-to-end. That meant booking talent, negotiating contracts, coordinating vendors, and designing the audience experience so the night felt coherent. It looked like entertainment from the outside, but it was really systems design under pressure.

Right now I serve as president of the Rutgers Newark Student Veteran Organization. That role has taught me more about design than any textbook. Veterans transitioning to campus life do not need generic programming; they need relevant support, clear pathways, and a community that respects where they are starting from.

Every one of these experiences forced the same core challenge: how do you create something that technically functions and meaningfully connects with people? You can optimize a process and still miss the person. You can care deeply and still fail if the structure is weak. The work is holding both at once.

That is the bridge in practical terms. Computer Science is the structure. social justice is the soul. Neither works alone if the goal is durable impact.

The Real Thesis

The most interesting builders I know are not just technically skilled. They understand context. They know a product is not great because it is elegant in isolation. It is great when it is placed well in the world, solves something real, and respects the complexity of the people it is built for.

That is what I am training myself to do. Not to split myself between two identities, but to build one way of thinking that can move between systems and people without losing precision in either one. I want to be the person in the room who can talk architecture and outcomes in the same breath.

So when I face a problem, I run two questions first. How does this work? Who does this serve? The first keeps me honest on execution. The second keeps me honest on purpose.

For me, that is the thesis. It is not just something I write for school. It is the operating system behind how I build teams, design projects, evaluate opportunities, and choose where to spend my energy.

People will probably keep giving me that confused look when I explain my double major. That is fine. Intersections often look unusual from the outside, especially to people used to clean categories. From where I stand, this path is not confusing at all. It is the most honest way to build the kind of work I want to put into the world.