Aarya Panse has an undergraduate degree in product design and says the CTD program will just be a continuation of what she loves to do. As an undergraduate Panse loved doing projects based on UX research and empathizing with people, and as an MS student, she hopes to "learn a little bit of a lot of things." "I hope to become a better coder, a better researcher, a better student and a better empath," she says. Aarya was selected as a semester exchange student at Hof Univerisity of Applied Sciences in Germany. She was looking forward to studying in Germany for a semester, but the second wave of the pandemic struck, forcing her to attend online. "I was initially very terrified and worried how this would work out, as it was a different environment which meant stepping out of my comfort zone," Aarya says. "I am really proud of the fact that not only did I enjoy studying and working on different research papers under versatile professors, but I also did pretty well in my exams, despite them being in a different time zone and a different format." Aarya loves reading, swimming and listening to all types of music. Fun fact: Aarya is a "water baby" who can breathe under water for almost a minute. She also speaks German