This week’s Student Spotlight is Jonathan Aranzazu, a U.S. Army Veteran and CECS Student Ambassador, double majoring in Applied AI and Philosophy. Continue reading to learn more about him and his time at CECS.
What brought you to CECS?
I came here because I wanted an education that acknowledges complexity and the chance to treat my life as something I could deliberately design. CECS is one of the few spaces that doesn’t force me to slice myself into a single label. It lets me work at the intersections where real problems actually live.
Why did you choose Applied AI and Philosophy as your majors?
I chose Applied AI and Philosophy because I am less interested in AI as a gadget and more interested in what it reveals about us. AI is basically a mirror pointed at our data, our incentives, and our blind spots. Philosophy gives me the framework to ask what we are really optimizing for and who pays the cost when we get it wrong. My degree is my way of standing right at the fault line between human messiness and machine logic, and asking better questions than “how do we make this faster?”
What is your favorite part about being a student ambassador?
My favorite part of being a student ambassador is being a visible contradiction to the script. I am not the standard “first-year, straight-from-high-school” student, and I like that. I enjoy translating all the abstract talk about pathways and transdisciplinary [studies] into something a real person can actually see themselves in.
What is the most valuable lesson you have learned as a CECS student so far?
The most valuable lesson I have learned is that nothing about your path is neutral. Your schedule, major, projects, and even your habits are all design decisions, whether you recognize it or not. My degree is not just something happening to me. It is a system I am actively building, and that mindset spills over into how I think about technology, ethics, and my own life.
If you could tell other students one thing about CECS, what would it be?
[CECS] gives you a set of tools and structures to architect a version of yourself that can survive in a world where AI, data, and design are colliding. If you are willing to treat your education as a prototype of your future self, this place makes sense.
What do you hope to do after graduation?
After graduation, I want to work where technical systems and human inner lives collide. In the short term, that probably looks like AI ethics, human-centered AI, and helping organizations build systems that do more than maximize clicks or efficiency. Long term, I am interested in designing tools that help people see their own patterns, biases, and narratives more clearly, the same way a good coach or therapist does, but augmented by intelligent systems. My goal is not to build machines that replace people, but systems that force us to look in the mirror and decide what kind of human we want to become.