Smith Shares Growth Through Educational Opportunities and Sport
Josiah Smith is a senior on the Carnegie Mellon University men's basketball team from Detroit, Michigan. He began playing basketball in fourth grade but considered it more of a hobby until eighth grade.
"I was more interested in chess until I got a growth spurt," he said.
Smith went to a combined middle and high school where he became familiar with coaches and programs before playing. While confident in his talent, he knew due to the size of the school it would be hard for him to accomplish his dream of playing in college. So, he decided to transfer to Catholic Central High School.
"It was cool because I got these two experiences of being a good player on a small team and being a small fish in a big pond," he said.
One of his favorite memories of the sport was his first offer to play college ball.
"I had to put in a lot of work to catch up to the people around me. So having coaches say, 'I want you to come play for me' showed me my work had paid off," he said.
Smith received offers from a couple of UAA schools and some local schools in Michigan. He ultimately decided on Carnegie Mellon because he wanted to go to a bigger school outside of Michigan where he could get the best education possible.
His bond with the team over the past four years convinced him he made the right choice. His teammates are his best friends whether they are hanging out in class, at practice, or watching games at each other's houses.
"To any of the recruits, the team is the best part of playing. The coaches do a great job of not just recruiting good players but good people," Smith said.
Smith's freshman year was during the height of the pandemic which made it a tough transition from high school to college. There wasn't any basketball for the first five months and classes being online made it hard to establish a routine on campus. The team was something he could depend on during this time and having people to grow with him made things smoother later on.
Smith initially believed he would be a mechanical engineering major, then an electrical and computer engineering major but eventually settled on statistics and machine learning. "I was always good at math and wanted to do something engineering-focused. Luckily, Carnegie Mellon had something for all those fields."
The summer before Smith's freshman year, his mother convinced him to do a three-week coding camp offered by Google. From this camp, Smith found a connection that would foster three internships and eventually, his job after graduation.
"They told everyone to apply for an internship at the end of camp. So, I applied and interviewed and have been there ever since," Smith said.
During his first summer with Google, Smith virtually worked in the database and filtration department, specifically testing the filtration system to decrease the downtime on COVID tests. His second summer he worked in New York for the speech biases department overlooking speech processing on accents. During his third summer, he worked in the Bay Area on a model for YouTube to detect harmful information from new content that was being produced. "Every summer was a different experience and it really opened me to my blind spots in the industry." Smith is not sure what his job will be after graduation but is looking forward to it.
"I've dealt with a lot of imposter syndrome but that wasn't the case with Google. I had a strong sense of belonging with great mentors who taught me about the corporate world and taught me to stand up for myself."
Smith will be graduating at the end of this year but is very grateful for everything Carnegie Mellon has given him. He's thankful to his parents and sister for supporting him through all of this and encouraging him to take risks. And he has a bit of advice for incoming students.
"Especially in the first couple of years, explore a lot, career-wise, Pittsburgh-wise. I thought I had everything figured out, but you never really know if you're interested in something until you try it. Be open to trying new things."