Interviewing Our Interns at Hacarus

As of late, the number of applicants to Hacarus has been steadily increasing and Hacarus has been quickly growing as a company. We currently have 35 interns! That's a whole lot! To future internship applicants, here's an idea about the environment at Hacarus from an intern's point of view.

*All interview are conducted in English

Ogi is an student at Ryukoku University and currently, a Data Scientist intern at Hacarus since March! He frequently participates in language exchange and enjoys making friends with international students. Wanting to improve his English speaking skills, he chose to study abroad in Slovakia.

Rikka: Can you tell me a little bit about yourself, your interests, and what you study?
Ogi: I study business administration in my university. I'm especially interested in international trading because it's a very big market where there are many people and products and technology. It is very complicated but also really interesting.

Rikka: What are your interests and hobbies?
Ogi: My hobby is reading books related to what I study [business, marketing, programming] and also...going to Universal Studios!

Rikka: Do you have the yearly pass or something?! And do you go with friends, or alone?! (haha)
Ogi: Yes, of course! Both. I sometimes go with friends and also, I go alone because I like rollercoasters (haha). My favorite ride is The Flying Dinosaur!

Rikka: Can you tell me about your experience studying abroad?
Ogi: I studied abroad in Slovakia for one year, which is one of the east European countries. In Slovakia, there are less visitors than western countries because there are not so many famous landmarks. The people there are really kind, and because of that, I have a lot of Slovak friends. I studied mainly in English.

Rikka: Can you speak Slovak?
Ogi: I can say "give me a temporary residence card" and also introduce myself.

Dobrý večer.
Ja som Ogi.
Bol som tak rád, že som sa stretol v Japonsko.
Ďakujem.

(Good evening.
I am Ogi.
I am glad to meet you in Japan.
Thank you.)

Ogi in Slovakia

Studying abroad in Slovakia and becoming an intern at Hacarus was Ogi's motivation to learn programming and English.

Rikka: When did you start studying programming?
Ogi: At the same time I began my study abroad program because the program is related to English since most parts of programming is written in English. So I studied both English and programming in Slovakia.

Rikka: Did you took programming classes? Or was that all self study?
Ogi: Self study.

Rikka: What began interest in programming?
Ogi: I thought programming was a really cool skill. I watched the movie about Mark Zuckerburg and when I saw the movie, I thought he was so cool for achieving making such a big company. For me, programming has a lot of potential so that's why I started to learn programming.

Rikka: What made you interested in Hacarus?
Ogi: In Hacarus, there are many data scientists. Data science is gradually becoming recognized and there are not so many data scientists. When I studied programming in Slovakia, I wanted to analyze some data to be a data scientist in Slovakia. I watched a movie, do you know Moneyball? I watched Moneyball and in that movie, the not-so strong team became strong became by data analyzing so I thought data analyzing also had potential. I wanted to get that kind of skill.

Rikka: What expectations did you have before coming to Hacarus?
Ogi: First of all, I wanted to get the skill of data analyzing and also I wanted to improve English skill. I studied in Slovakia last year, but after coming back to Japan, I thought that to improve my English in Japan would be difficult since many people speak only Japanese so I wanted to keep improving.

Rikka: Interesting! So what are other ways you try to improve in English?
Ogi: I took one English class in university. Before studying abroad, I entered a seminar class and the teacher of that seminar class teacher majored in English education in America so her English skills is really good in university and I also often communicate with international students in my university.

Rikka: So what kind of clubs are you in and how do you meet with international students?
Ogi: My club, which is an overseas exchange committee, makes events to become friends with Japanese students. In my club, we make events and gather students and also Japanese students by playing some games, having communication or studying languages.

Ogi's thoughts on Hacarus:

Rikka: What do you feel about the environment in Hacarus?
Ogi: The environment in Hacarus is really good. The start time of work is not really strict so I can start from 9 or 10. It's flexible. The office is clean and the members are friendly. When I have problems, I can ask someone for help, which is really great!

Rikka: What projects have you had?
Ogi: My previous project is related to car part detection. It was my first project where I tried to decrease overdetection of car parts by using one algorithm by dividing the image to tell if something is overdetected or an inappropriate car part. I mainly did image analyzing.

Rikka: What do you think is important for you to grow as an engineer?
Ogi: For me, it is important to learn from mistakes and learn from studying new information because in my previous projects, and also present project, I faced some obstacles because I’m not a major in computer science, so I have less knowledge about programming. I have faced many mistakes and I obtained many kinds of new informations when I face some problem. In facing problems, I searched on the internet and asked Hacarus members, mainly Masui-san and when I get new information, I memorize many things and write information which I can record to remind me what I’ve written.

Ogi's note-taking during work at Hacarus

Rikka: What do you think you learned from Hacarus?
Ogi: I think the idea of trial and error is very important when I tried to do my project. I made some mistakes and when I made these mistakes- I'd modify them. I learned a lot of things from Hacarus members and also indepedent search for new information on the internet and got feedback from mentors.

Rikka: What do you enjoy at Hacarus?
Ogi: I enjoyed working at Hacarus every time, because in Hacarus, I can get many experiences. In my university, I mainly studied about business, so I cannot learn data science in university and my friends and my professors don’t have the data science and computer science skills and experience. When I am in Hacarus, I can learn the skills of data science and computer science which are secondary skills apart form what I learn in university. So I really enjoy Hacarus for those reasons.

Rikka: Thank you for your time Ogi!

Ogi: Thank you!