Stevens Center Academic Spotlight: Yoofi Quansah
August 24, 2017 | Football, Student-Athlete Academic Services, USC Ripsit Blog, Features
USC's student-athletes are more than just champions on the field, court, diamond and pool -- they're champions in the classroom as well. Each week, we will get to know one of these scholarly Trojans a bit better in our academic spotlight.
Name: Yoofi Quansah
Class: Redshirt Junior
Sport: Football
Major: Computer Science
GPA: 3.24
Aubrey Kragen (AK): When did you first become interested in computer science?
Yoofi Quansah (YQ): All throughout my life, I've always been good at math. But actually when I came into college, I was an electrical engineering major. I didn't want to be a math or physics major, so I chose something that was closely related. And electrical engineering seemed to be that field that kind of bridged the gap. I was in electrical engineering for about a year and a half, and then I took a couple computer science classes and coding classes, and I was really interested in that, so I just transitioned into that.
AK: You started your academic career at UC San Diego, right? What made you choose to go there out of high school?
YQ: It was kind of like my only best option. I've always wanted to come to USC, but I didn't really have a chance to apply coming out of high school. And I did have a chance at UC San Diego. And when I came here I changed my major.
AK: How soon after you transferred here did you join the football team?
YQ: I was not on the football team for a semester -- fall of 2014. In the spring of 2015, that's when I tried out and made the team.
AK: How difficult has it been to have such a tough major and to have the football schedule on top of that?
YQ: It was really tough in the beginning, especially the fall of 2015 and the spring of 2016, because that was when I was taking the meat of my classes. It was really tough. A lot of late nights, but I pulled through.
AK: What are some of your favorite classes that you've taken here?
YQ: One class I really loved was technical entrepreneurship. That was one of my favorites because I'm really interested in entrepreneurship and just pursuing that after college. I also took an international relations class that I really liked. As far as technically, for computer science, I took this class called CSCI 201 -- principles of software development -- which just talks about different stages of developing software and where those stages intersect with each other.
AK: Do you have a specialty within the computer science major that you're pursuing?
YQ: They don't really offer a lot of specialties. That's why they offer tech electives that you can take, like what you're interested in. As far as me, I'm interested in web development. I haven't taken a class in it, but I've learned it on my own.
AK: How do you go about learning something like that on your own time?
YQ: Once you know how to code, it's pretty easy to learn how to do web development. It's kind of like, you just seek online sources, read books, and kind of get the ins and outs of it.
AK: Can you describe what web development entails?
YQ: Well, depending on what kind of website you want -- if it's just a display of information, like an "About" page or a resume, there's not much that goes into that. Anybody could do that. But if it's more of a dynamic website like Facebook or Twitter, you need different parts of the website to work, like a database, the back end and the front end. I'm more interested in the back end, which is stuff that the user doesn't see, but it's like the core functionality of the website. One of the things that we do as back end developers is we bring whatever's in the database to the display for the user to see. So, like, when you log into Facebook, what you're doing is you're sending a request to the Facebook servers. And Facebook has to authenticate that request and then seek the information within their database and send your profile and all your friends to you. That's the part I'm most interested in.
AK: Are you still an undergraduate student or have you moved on to a master's degree?
YQ: I'm doing a progressive degree program, so right now I'm taking one undergrad class and two master's classes. And then next semester I'll be taking three master's classes. I would say I'm a grad student, but I'm still taking one undergrad class.
AK: You mentioned you were interested in entrepreneurship. Would you like to create your own product one day? What are your career goals?
YQ: I already have ideas of what I want to do. Me and my brother are actually trying to start this company that deals with promoting entrepreneurship around campuses and just people using their software skills outside of an academic setting. I wouldn't say long-term, I would say we're doing it now. Right now it's not like we're starting the company, we're just doing research. Trying to find market interest and how it would fit in within people's needs.
AK: So your brother is interested in the same field you are? How nice is it to be able to talk about that and help each other out?
YQ: Yeah, he's a computer science major, too. He goes to Syracuse. He's actually a year younger than me, so I'm just one step ahead of him in terms of the classes that we take. But we definitely talk and bring our skills together to try to develop some stuff.
Name: Yoofi QuansahClass: Redshirt Junior
Sport: Football
Major: Computer Science
GPA: 3.24
Aubrey Kragen (AK): When did you first become interested in computer science?
Yoofi Quansah (YQ): All throughout my life, I've always been good at math. But actually when I came into college, I was an electrical engineering major. I didn't want to be a math or physics major, so I chose something that was closely related. And electrical engineering seemed to be that field that kind of bridged the gap. I was in electrical engineering for about a year and a half, and then I took a couple computer science classes and coding classes, and I was really interested in that, so I just transitioned into that.
AK: You started your academic career at UC San Diego, right? What made you choose to go there out of high school?
YQ: It was kind of like my only best option. I've always wanted to come to USC, but I didn't really have a chance to apply coming out of high school. And I did have a chance at UC San Diego. And when I came here I changed my major.
AK: How soon after you transferred here did you join the football team?
YQ: I was not on the football team for a semester -- fall of 2014. In the spring of 2015, that's when I tried out and made the team.
AK: How difficult has it been to have such a tough major and to have the football schedule on top of that?
YQ: It was really tough in the beginning, especially the fall of 2015 and the spring of 2016, because that was when I was taking the meat of my classes. It was really tough. A lot of late nights, but I pulled through.
AK: What are some of your favorite classes that you've taken here?
YQ: One class I really loved was technical entrepreneurship. That was one of my favorites because I'm really interested in entrepreneurship and just pursuing that after college. I also took an international relations class that I really liked. As far as technically, for computer science, I took this class called CSCI 201 -- principles of software development -- which just talks about different stages of developing software and where those stages intersect with each other.
AK: Do you have a specialty within the computer science major that you're pursuing?
YQ: They don't really offer a lot of specialties. That's why they offer tech electives that you can take, like what you're interested in. As far as me, I'm interested in web development. I haven't taken a class in it, but I've learned it on my own.
AK: How do you go about learning something like that on your own time?
YQ: Once you know how to code, it's pretty easy to learn how to do web development. It's kind of like, you just seek online sources, read books, and kind of get the ins and outs of it.
AK: Can you describe what web development entails?
YQ: Well, depending on what kind of website you want -- if it's just a display of information, like an "About" page or a resume, there's not much that goes into that. Anybody could do that. But if it's more of a dynamic website like Facebook or Twitter, you need different parts of the website to work, like a database, the back end and the front end. I'm more interested in the back end, which is stuff that the user doesn't see, but it's like the core functionality of the website. One of the things that we do as back end developers is we bring whatever's in the database to the display for the user to see. So, like, when you log into Facebook, what you're doing is you're sending a request to the Facebook servers. And Facebook has to authenticate that request and then seek the information within their database and send your profile and all your friends to you. That's the part I'm most interested in.
AK: Are you still an undergraduate student or have you moved on to a master's degree?
YQ: I'm doing a progressive degree program, so right now I'm taking one undergrad class and two master's classes. And then next semester I'll be taking three master's classes. I would say I'm a grad student, but I'm still taking one undergrad class.
AK: You mentioned you were interested in entrepreneurship. Would you like to create your own product one day? What are your career goals?
YQ: I already have ideas of what I want to do. Me and my brother are actually trying to start this company that deals with promoting entrepreneurship around campuses and just people using their software skills outside of an academic setting. I wouldn't say long-term, I would say we're doing it now. Right now it's not like we're starting the company, we're just doing research. Trying to find market interest and how it would fit in within people's needs.
AK: So your brother is interested in the same field you are? How nice is it to be able to talk about that and help each other out?
YQ: Yeah, he's a computer science major, too. He goes to Syracuse. He's actually a year younger than me, so I'm just one step ahead of him in terms of the classes that we take. But we definitely talk and bring our skills together to try to develop some stuff.
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