>> So I think the building block would be: If you have an interest, go pursue it.
If research does not exist, create it.
I think the university always allows students who are rebel,
who want to come up with new ideas, think outside of the box.
So don't limit yourself to what you already have.
If the opportunity does not exist, create one.
You can start with basic programming.
I think these days programming does not mean you start with C/C-plus-plus.
You can start with something, Python, and see whether this is something you enjoy,
because in computer programming, often you may spend a lot of time trying to debug
and that requires a bit of patience, and I think patience is like a muscle.
The more you work at it, it gets better.
So start with taking a programming class on Python.
There are online learning classes, so through them, or take a class here
at Penn State and see if you like it.
That's one way.
There might be advanced-level classes learning about humans in general, human and technology,
society in general, and those classes could be more about a discussion as opposed
to programming, so that might be another possibility to --
if you want to stay on the policy side of things.
Those are some of the things that you can explore where you may not have to build things,
but if you think of the right idea,
you can learn about what are the issues and think more about those.