{"id":51,"date":"2025-08-13T16:32:30","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T16:32:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/spring-summer-2025\/?p=51"},"modified":"2025-08-14T22:48:46","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T22:48:46","slug":"a-reason-to-be-at-hmc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/spring-summer-2025\/a-reason-to-be-at-hmc\/","title":{"rendered":"A Reason to be at HMC"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Devon Tao \u201925 didn\u2019t want to be class president during their junior year. Tao ran, hoping it would inspire others to run and that someone, not Tao, would win. But with no opposition, Tao won in a landslide and decided to make the best of the new challenge. \u201cI did a bunch of crazy things,\u201d Tao says. \u201cI had a class event every single week. I did a lot of meet and greets, a lot of watching Everything Everywhere All at Once<\/em>, my favorite movie. The craziest thing I did was to spend $400, which was two-thirds of our class budget, to hire a mime. It was the most-attended class event I\u2019ve ever seen.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everything, everywhere, all at once is a good way to describe Tao\u2019s overall Harvey Mudd College experience. Tao has applied their limitless creativity, energy, quirky sense of humor and community-building instincts across the 5Cs. In addition to serving as class president, they\u2019ve been a computer science grutor and student ambassador and founded 7C Ace and Aro Space, an affinity group for asexual and aromantic students. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Academically, Tao, a CS and mathematics major, co-authored and presented research at national conferences with CS professor Lucas Bang, completed an independent study with CS professor Ben Wiederman to develop an online video-based programming languages course and regularly contributed to their YouTube channel, CS Professor of Fun. In their final semester, with support from HSA professors Darryl Wright (philosophy) and Bill Alves (music) and Jill Knox (theater, Pomona College), they produced and performed Reason to Be<\/em>, an original musical that they began writing as a sophomore. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The musical\u2019s message resonates deeply with Tao\u2019s own questions about purpose and the intersection of creativity and science. \u201cIt deals with the idea of value: what we value as a society, what types of work are valued, compensated and not,\u201d Tao says. \u201cThe heart of the story is really about the meaning of hope and the meaning of music in the face of these extreme challenges. Theater really is about people, and, on a larger scale, if we\u2019re going to get through this climate situation, it\u2019s going to be all about people.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very important to me that I do something good in the world.\u201d<\/p>\nDevon Tao ’25<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The tight-knit community coupled with the STEM and liberal arts focus at Harvey Mudd have provided a supportive environment for Tao, who is thinking a lot about how to build a career that combines a passion for music with a passion for teaching and also pays the bills. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt’s very important to me that I do something good in the world,\u201d says Tao, the recipient of the 2025 Dorman Student Altruism Prize, which they were given, in part, for embodying \u201cHarvey Mudd\u2019s values of leadership, collaboration and social responsibility\u201d and for having \u201cshaped a more inclusive, compassionate and resilient community at Mudd.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think about the idea of understanding the impact of my work on society all the time,\u201d Tao says. \u201cI do a lot of valuable work that is impactful, but it does not compensate at all. And the kind of research that I want to do is a combination of human computer interaction and CS or math education research. I want to make software that helps people learn.\u201d After graduation, Tao will embark on a PhD program in data science at UC San Diego. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith my skillset and the Mudd degree, I could maybe have an easier life being a software engineer instead of being an artist and a teacher,\u201d Tao says. \u201cBut I think, in the end, I need to be true to myself and to my values. I don\u2019t think about specifically how I use science to impact the public. I just think of myself as a person that has all these aspects. But I know that being an artist makes me a better scientist, and being a scientist makes me a better artist.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Devon Tao \u201925 didn\u2019t want to be class president during their junior year. Tao ran, hoping it would inspire others to run and that someone, not Tao, would win. But with no opposition, Tao won in a landslide and decided to make the best of the new challenge. \u201cI did a bunch of crazy things,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":53,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/spring-summer-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/spring-summer-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/spring-summer-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/spring-summer-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/spring-summer-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/spring-summer-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":168,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/spring-summer-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51\/revisions\/168"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/spring-summer-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/spring-summer-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/spring-summer-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/spring-summer-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}