Student Yoon Seo-young interviewed about winning the 'Campus Analytics Challenge' in the U.S.
- bizskk
- Hit528
- 2023-01-19
Yoon Seo-young(U of SC, MS in Business Analytics double degree), a master's student in the BK21 Fintech Convergence Department at our university, won the 'Wells Fargo Campus Analytics Challenge' competition hosted by Wells Fargo bank in the U.S. The competition was held for all college and graduate students in the United States, and Yoon Seo-young was selected as one of the eight finalists. Student Yoon Seo-young participated under the theme of ‘Determine Transaction Categories Using Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing’ and said that it was a good opportunity to experience the role of data scientists in the financial industry and explore how artificial intelligence intersects. Let's meet Yoon Seo-young and hear more about her story.
1. Hello, please introduce yourself first.
Hello, I'm Yoon Seo-young majoring in Fintech Convergence at Sungkyunkwan University. After graudating from Ewha Womans University with a degree in business administration, I entered the spring semester of 2021 and am currently pursuing a double degree at the University of South Carolina.
2. I heard that you won the Wells Fargo Campus Analytics Challenge in the U.S. Congratulations. Please give us a brief acceptance speech.
It's been about a year and a half since I entered graduated school with a interest in data science and FIntech, and I'm very happy that my efforts have paid off. I majored in business administration when I was an undergraduate, and there were many difficulties in studying other fields, but it is rewarding to be able to produce good results. Also, through this competition, I was able to check my aptitude and interest in the field once again.
3. What is the ‘Wells Fargo Campus Analytics Challenge’ hosted by Wells Fargo Bank in the United States?
Wells Fargo is one of the four largest commercial banks in the U.S. and hosts machine learning competition for all college and graduate students in the U.S. Each year, it provides new self-data and opportunities for students to experience the role of data scientists in the real financial industry and develop creative models tat solve problem
4. Please explain 'Determine Transaction Categories Using Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing’ that you studied.
The theme of the 2022 competition was to develop a model that predicts customer's bank transaction categories based on given bank transaction descriptions using machine learning and natural language processing. Training data is categorized into 10 categories, and each transaction history is about one sentence long and includes information such as data, place, brand, amount, and seller code(MCC). After extracting meaningful features from transaction data using natural language processing, we went through the process of creating a classification model by applying machine learning algorithms based on the selected feature and meta data.
Finally, we applied the developed model to classify unlabeled data, and wrote and submitted a report in a short paper format. Traditional text processing and feature extraction methods are not sufficient and suitable for extracting meaningful information because bank transaction data is very short compared to general text. Therefore I believe that finding a new method/combination text processing that matches the nature of the data was the most important factor in this competition.
5. What are your future career and goals?
As a Data scientist, I want to develop a digital strategy that can help financial institutions make data-driven decisions and provide high-quality financial services to customers. I also want to contribute to digital transformation of financial institutions and innovation in financial services through this. In the long run, I would like to expand my base as a STEM female leader in the United States.
6. Lastly, please give us some advice for students interested in fintech convergence major.
There are many data science graduate schools in Korea, but Sungkyunkwan University's Fintech Convergence Major is the only with a clear domain and multiple degrees with overseas graduate schools. Because you can comprehensively study various disciplines, including finance, statistics, and computer science, everyone like me who is new to science and engineering, or those who are new to finance, can full challenge it. It is also highly recommended that you can consider a career in the United States through multiple degrees, expanding the diversity of opportunities. If you are interested in fintech and have decided on a domain in the financial field, I hope you will challenge it and have an opportunity to successfully change/strengthen your major.