Yeseo Jeon ’26 combines music and computer science in summer internship

From live concerts to shared playlists, music is an undeniably connective force in society. At Grey Matter, Yeseo Jeon ’26 is building upon this truth to create an interactive graph of musical connections as a music data curation intern.

Grey Matter is a social network for sharing and discovering music with a mission to “connect people through music and build enduring value for those who make it.” Jeon was first intrigued by Grey Matter’s view of music as connective, which resonated with her extensive musical experience. This internship perfectly harmonized her two passions of media and computer science. 

“Music has always been a really big part of my life,” said Jeon. “I always was in bands, and I’ve always really loved making music as a hobby. Coming to Carleton and taking my first computer science class, I also really fell in love with the tech field and how powerful and applicable it was to any other field. I’ve personally made a lot of connections and lifelong friendships through music and by being in bands. I realized that by working on my project [for Grey Matter], I will be working toward facilitating these connections for other people and artists. [Grey Matter] is a perfect opportunity for me.”

The internship began with Jeon adapting to new frameworks, like Node js and Nest js, as well as gaining familiarity with the company’s database. From there, Jeon learned how to build a web application and set up a database from scratch using industry standard frameworks. This really excited Jeon, as it elevated her experience from building “basic and simple web applications” to building more complex applications for a “real world context to serve actual customers.” 

“That’s when a lot of different concepts I’d encountered before really connected together in my head,” said Jeon.  

Even with it being a remote internship, Jeon’s position still emphasized community-building. Jeon spends five to six hours per week ensemble programming with her fellow interns and her supervisor. During this time, Jeon and the other interns take turns sharing their screens, coding, and contributing ideas as they work together, exchanging feedback and debugging. At other times, the interns receive additional exercises from their supervisor to expand their skill sets remotely. 

“I learned a lot of practical and industry knowledge that I couldn’t have learned without this opportunity,” she said. 

Jeon also expressed gratitude to Carleton’s Career Center, which was “super helpful” during her internship hunt. 

“It is difficult to find internship opportunities nowadays as an international student in the field of computer science, which is oversaturated,” said Jeon. “I’m really grateful for the Career Center’s connections [with Carleton alumni and employers].”