Mert Albeyoğlu

Meet Mert! A current student on our Computer Science MEng. After learning code in Python from scratch, he's gone on to win the biggest student hackathon in Europe, work with IBM and intern at Spotify.

Tell us a bit about you. 

I was born in Istanbul, Turkey. I studied there until high school and then went to a boarding school in California, USA. 

Afterwards, I came to the UK to do a foundation year (UPCSE) at UCL. After a successful foundation year, I was accepted to study Computer Science at UCL. 

I have various interests such as basketball, playing guitar, and recently Tango.  

Why did you choose to study Computer Science at UCL?  

I wanted to study Computer Science from a young age. The idea of being able to code and create whatever I imagined was incredibly captivating.  

In addition, my interest in robotics and autonomous systems really drove me to apply for Computer Science.  

From a young age, I participated in the robotics club at my school. Observing digital translating into physical was magical to me, and I wanted to deepen my knowledge in this domain.  

What have been your biggest achievements so far?  

I have a few achievements that were significant milestones.

In my first year, I ranked first in the class in the notorious coding a Tetris AI assignment.  

It was an important point for me because I just started learning Python code for the first time, and to achieve such a ranking after starting from the bottom of the leaderboard really motivated me to dive deeper into coding.  

The same year, I was selected as 1 of the 10 Computer Science undergrads to pursue research within the department. I did a research internship at the Autonomous Research Group with the Machine Intelligence Lab.  

Seeing the environment and knowledge of people in Artificial Intelligence further persuaded me to pursue a career in AI.  

In my second year, I won the biggest student hackathon in Europe, the Imperial College London Hackathon (IC Hack). It was my first major hackathon win.  

The same year, my peers and I at UCL were able to reimagine our IXN project by completely changing the direction and creating a free AI engine from scratch for people with motor neuron disease.  

We were able to convince IBM to jump on board and mentor us as well, thanks to the professors.  

In the summer of my second year, I interned at Spotify as the youngest Machine Learning Engineer in the company.  

All of the skills and knowledge I acquired up until then allowed me to fundamentally modify an engine with an AI-algorithm, making significant performance gains. Spotify did get faster recently, didn’t it? 

In my third year, I won IC hack once again with my friends (this time in the Generative AI category) making it two times in a row.  

Any of this would have been unimaginable for me when I set foot in Computer Science in first year. However, as Steve Jobs said “You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.” 

Can you tell us about the International Foundation Year you completed at UCL? 

The foundation year was a transformative time in my life. I had strong fundamental skills in my respective subjects when I entered (sciences and maths), but the foundation year enabled me to build upon that knowledge while equipping me with academic writing and professional speaking skills. 

I greatly benefitted from the academic English classes. They enabled me to hone a professional tone and style in assignments I’ve had throughout my degree.  

Another great aspect of foundation year was the connections I made with my teachers. Particularly in physics, both teachers (Yiannis and Vincent) were incredible mentors for me.

They also supported me, alongside my other incredible teachers, throughout my application process to UCL. Overall, the foundation year was a challenging yet incredibly rewarding experience where I grew both academically and as an individual. I am still close with many of the friends I made.

What advice would you give to students considering the International Foundation Year programme? 

I would give them the same advice I gave to the foundation year students I mentored after graduating: always plan ahead and be prepared. Discipline is key.  

You should be prepared to get challenged; however, that is necessary to equip you with the skills to succeed at your undergraduate degree.  

In addition, the foundation year is about your growth as an individual. Many of the skills I acquired at Academic English, Science & Society, and Academic Speaking classes turned out to be invaluable for my degree assignments and career interviews/networking.  

Make sure that you always have a long-term plan and a vision that you work towards. That way, you will always be able to make the right decisions that will serve you well in the long run, even if that may not be so clear in the chaos of the moment.  

You’re in the third year of your degree now. How is it different to the earlier years of your degree?  

I would say that I am accustomed to a lot of the good, bad, and the ugly at this point. I am much better at managing my workload and social life.  

That comes with improving your stress and time management and understanding the importance of a healthy lifestyle; working out, sleeping well, and eating healthily.  

That being said, the difficulty of the classes is definitely higher, and the depth of assignments more extensive. This means that thorough and long-term planning is required to achieve good results in modules.  

Finally, I know a lot more people around the campus now. Walking around, it is always an incredible feeling to know that I can run into a good friend whether I go to get coffee, go for a walk, or study in the library.  

My advice for first years would be to really throw themselves out there, to go out of their comfort zone, knowing it is not only them that feel nervous but everyone else as well.  

I would like to end this section by leaving a quote from my foundation year teacher Vincent: “You can see many old and beautiful buildings if you look around UCL. And many of these buildings have a rich history. However, what UCL stands for is the people. It’s these people, not the buildings that make it special”.  

Have you had the chance to develop industry connections at UCL Computer Science? 

I developed significant industry connections throughout my degree. I made a lot of connections through career fairs that I further deepened, from the IXN (industry exchange programme we have at UCL), and the BaseKX incubator. These are crucial for me as they have allowed me to develop a significant network in London.  

What do you hope to do when you graduate next year? 

Currently, I am very interested in deepening my understanding in machine learning. I would like to work on ML architecture modifications and general improvements to the Transformer model (or to come up with a new one). I find this kind of work incredibly motivating, and I hope to work in a positive environment that will support my growth technically and individually after I graduate.