About Me
I’m Bingchen Yin, a college student in Illinois studying data science. I spend a lot of my time working on projects, playing video games, and following sports. Golf was a big part of my life growing up, and my interest in coding came a little later.
I grew up in China and moved to Florida in eighth grade. I stayed there through high school before moving to Illinois for college. School took some getting used to at first. I knew very little English, and the classroom environment was different from what I was used to, but I adapted pretty quickly.
A lot of my English developed naturally through watching YouTube, following sports, and playing video games. I wasn’t treating those things as lessons. I was just spending time on things I enjoyed, and English gradually became part of my everyday life.
Living away from my family also meant getting used to arranging tournament trips and, later, renting places to live and managing everyday life myself. Between Florida and Illinois, I’ve had quite a few experiences I wouldn’t have imagined before moving here.
For a long time, I thought I would become a professional golfer. Well, that didn’t quite work out.
I started playing when I was seven, and golf took up a big part of my life through middle and high school. My usual school day was golf in the morning and classes in the afternoon. On weekends, I would often practice on my own. Between training and tournaments, a lot of my time was spent around the game.
By sophomore year, I was starting to see just how competitive golf was. I still trained hard, but I began putting more attention into academics and taking more challenging courses. I wanted to explore what else interested me, although coding wasn’t on my mind yet.
Golf also gave me some good memories outside of my usual routine. After winning a tournament in China hosted by Mercedes-Benz, I received tickets to the 2017 Masters and got to take my parents to Augusta.
Watching the Masters in person with them is still a memory I’m glad to have from those years.
I wasn’t especially tech-savvy when I started coding near the end of junior year. Python seemed to be everywhere, so I decided to see what it was about. I started learning through videos on my own. My first actual coding coursework didn’t come until college.
It felt like a late start, but I kept going. Now, data science is the main focus of my coursework and many of my projects. What I like most is the story the data can tell. The numbers are interesting, but I enjoy figuring out what they mean and how to explain that to someone else.
I picked up web development because I wanted to make things that were visual and interactive. It also connects with what I enjoy about data science: making information approachable. This portfolio has given me a place to work on that while bringing my different projects together.
I’ve also started learning game development on my own. I’ve spent a lot of time playing games, so I wanted to try making one. I’m currently working on Spellbound, and I’m still learning as I build it.
Explore my projectsI’ve always spent a lot of my free time watching sports. I would watch after school, and I still put on a game whenever I have the chance. Now that I’m in college, I regularly go to my school’s football games, too.
Basketball is what I watch the most, and I love talking about it. Sometimes I feel like I’m married to the game. I enjoy sharing my opinions and hearing other people’s takes. I also follow soccer, college football, and Formula 1, so there’s usually a game or a race I’m happy to talk about.
Video games are another thing I can talk about for a long time. I’ve played a lot of different games over the years, and I enjoy sharing my opinions and hearing what other people think. They were part of how I learned English, and they’re still a big part of how I spend my free time.
I’m also really into PC hardware. I recently built my own desktop because I wanted a computer for work and 4K gaming, and I liked being able to choose every component myself.
I enjoy talking about parts and working on the PC just as much as having the finished setup. It’s something completely custom to me, and now I get to use it for my projects, coursework, and games. Between hardware, sports, and video games, there’s usually plenty I’m happy to talk about.
