Michael Chung

Engineering Futures Scholar

Michael Chung, a computer science student at the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, said he was inspired to pursue this major after one of his friends created a yearlong data mining project that searches keywords in the dark web for an honors class through the same program.

“I saw their progress and what the program was capable of and I thought that was really cool,” Chung said. “So, I decided to learn Python to begin with, and I don’t know, I just really started to like it”. 

Chung is the treasurer for the Barrett Residential Council (BRC), a member of Software Developers Association (SoDA) and is actively involved in the Artificial Intelligence club (AIC). 

He was originally interested in pursuing a degree in physics but liked that there were more job opportunities and job security in the computer science field. He focuses his studies in machine learning and artificial intelligence as well.

“My parents are definitely supportive,” Chung said. 

Chung, who was born and raised in Chandler, Arizona, was leaning toward the engineering program at Arizona State University more than other schools he applied to because the price was more affordable.

The transition from high school to college was smooth for Chung and enjoys college a lot because he said the environment promotes a positive, focused atmosphere and there’s more freedom outside of high school.

He said he works toward being as efficient as possible in completing homework, building his resume and working on personal projects in a timely manner because he said he had to overcome old habits of procrastination that developed in high school. 

One of Chung’s personal projects include creating a program that are capable of predicting housing rates in California that would let a real estate investor know which properties to invest in and he’s also programmed a model that can instantly classify a flower that’s being shown in an image based off of details presented like petal length. 

Chung is working toward becoming a full stack engineer, which means an engineer is knowledgeable on both back-end and front-end development and is looking forward to seeing his personal and academic growth lead him in the future. 

By Laura Stack, Science and Technology Writer, Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering
May 12, 2020