We have three wonderful undergraduate student workers who assist with DSG projects each and every week: Amen Amare, Caleb Lee, and Nathanael Choi. Because they work in the Digital Studio space, these three are also available to help other students with software on Digital Studio computers.

Amen is an Economics major who hopes to work in financial markets after graduation. He is originally from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. On campus, he is also involved in the African Students Organization, Black Christian Fellowship, and the Ethiopian-Eritrean Students Association. He says he enjoys working in the Digital Studio space because it’s also where his friends come to study, so he blends in and doesn’t feel secluded.

Caleb is a Communication major with an Accounting minor. He hopes to work in accounting after graduation, but he is also open to working in media and has practiced some of his audio production skills in the Digital Studio’s podcasting room. He is originally from Cypress, California. At BC, he is involved in Asian Baptist Student Koinonia. Caleb says he has learned “general computer skills” by working for the DSG. He also enjoys the people he works with and the “overall feel” of the Digital Studio.

Nathanael is a Mathematics major with a passion for the humanities and hopes to work in consulting or law after graduation. He is originally from Long Beach, California. He is part of Club Ping Pong, the AHANA+Pre-Law Student Association, and Campus Ministry. Nathanael enjoys “meeting so many cool, kind, intelligent people” while working in the Digital Studio, and we are grateful for his tireless efforts on a variety of challenging projects.

Amen, Caleb, and Nathanael have been a huge help on a variety of DSG projects this fall, including working on GIS data, 3D modeling data, data organization, and textual data entry. Currently, all three work on structuring data for the DSG’s ongoing Catholic Almanacs project. Caleb says he has learned “how to work on projects that seem tedious with more efficiency.” Nathanael adds that he has become much more comfortable with Excel and GoogleSheets and has learned “the importance of preserving information from old documents.”

Amen says he has learned that “there are multiple ways to analyze text information using code.” He has been experimenting with using generative AI in our workflow for the Catholic Almanacs project to help extract data from charts within PDFs. So far, he has learned that Chat GPT can help take a first pass at pulling some of the names and numbers, but that it still requires hefty intervention to make sure the information is complete and correct.

We couldn’t do the kinds of projects we do without the help of Amen, Caleb, and Nathanael. Next time you see them in the Digital Studio or out on campus, be sure to say hello!