Cardozo Urges Students to Follow Interests

Alan Chung ’25 experienced Massachusetts Institute of Technology Instructor Christian Cardozo’s teaching at the Beaver Works Summer Institute at MIT and thought he would make a great chapel speaker. Fellow AI and Ethics Club members Patrick Burke ’25 and Paxton Silver ’25 agreed, and with the help of Student Council funds, they brought him from Boston to the Hyde Chapel stage April 25.
Cheng introduced Cardozo to the student body by describing his class titled “Many Interesting Things.”

“[This class] teaches material from interesting and difficult MIT classes to first-year students without the pressure of being in those formal classes,” Cheng said. “He covers topics like computer architecture, strobe photography, quantum computation, machine learning, and computer vision. Christian feels that even the most challenging topics can be introduced in an inviting and exciting way – and the inspiring work he has done indeed points to the truthfulness of this claim.”

Cardozo spoke about how his wide-ranging interests have provided motivation for learning. He guided students through his path from MIT student to software engineer at Nirrin Technologies to now advising first-year MIT students and teaching and conducting hands-on engineering projects. However, he experienced some bumps along the way.

After being a straight-A student in high school, he said, “I got my butt kicked in my first semester at MIT.” He realized he was more focused on the tests than on understanding the material. Eventually, he figured out his superpower. It was not being the smartest person in the room; it was teaching. He became focused on trying to teach material better than he had been taught it.

He described how he dove into each of his projects by following his curiosity, including creating a video of daily photos of his face from age 13-30 and combatting scammers claiming to be from the Social Security Administration.

According to Cardozo, each person has interests that make him unique.  

“As much as this is a talk about the projects I have done, it is really about intrinsic motivation. What interests you? ... All of you have a unique set of superpowers. You are interested in a variety of topics –  some of you are interested in engineering, some of you do art, some of you do art and engineering. The unique combination of things that you are good at, that interest you, and that you do, each is a unique digit in your passcode. Odds are you’re the only one who has that unique combination. Why do I say this? Because you can make the coolest, most unique things if you put that unique combination of skills all together. It’s the DNA that makes up your unique code.”

Cardozo modeled his MIT thesis and eventual “Many Interesting Things” class after this concept. He introduces a variety of lessons and subjects to first-year students within a stress-free environment so the guiding force for the class is the students’ intrinsic motivation.

After his talk, Cardozo took questions on AI and MIT and spoke with Dr. Steve Gadbois’ math students in Wunderlich Auditorium.
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