UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — How can a student studying cybersecurity analytics and operations make a positive change for the professional ballet industry?
Fourth-year Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology student Eugene Ryoo is doing just that, after working with a team of Penn State students to create a centralized system where dancers can locate auditions, training programs, jobs and housing needs.
Ryoo partnered with high school friend and Penn State World Campus student Rob Fulton, a dancer with the Nevada Ballet Theater who has experienced this gap in the market firsthand. Along with Sasha Ahrestani, a fourth-year student studying computer science, they worked to make The Ballet Scout, a subscription database service for dancers, a reality.
According to Ryoo, The Ballet Scout is similar to the Common App — an online platform that college applicants can use to enter general information such as name and address only once to apply to multiple institutions — but is a focused solution for ballet dancers.
“The purpose of the site is to help ballet students and their parents plan out their next career move,” said Ryoo, who is pursuing a degree in cybersecurity analytics and operations.
He handles issues that users face, such as the payment system and the ability to bookmark auditions, programs and job opportunities. He also maintains other standard information pages on the site.
“I was initially supposed to come on as more of a cybersecurity analyst, but in practice I am more of a developer,” Ryoo said.
Ryoo joined the project, then named Eclaireur, in January 2021 — just in time for the Bardusch Family IdeaMakers Challenge, a pitch competition hosted by the College of IST during Penn State Startup Week. Ryoo’s team won first place in the challenge, thanks, in part, to mentorship provided by Elizabeth King, a Penn State alumna who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in political science in 1979 and retired from Starbucks Corp. as vice president of human resources solutions.
“We got a lot of experience out of developing our project for the competition and working with Elizabeth, and also a lot of buzz,” Ryoo said. "We also got some support from the college and from a contract developer on the front-end stuff.”
Ryoo drew upon his IST classroom experiences, as well as his drive to work on personal projects, to propel The Ballet Scout forward.
“My classes gave me a really good baseline level of knowledge,” Ryoo said. “But if there was something specific, I would need to go out and do my own research, which I knew how to do because the classes taught us what we needed to learn.”
Ryoo attributes his attention to detail and aesthetics of the code to a programming class he took last semester.
“Before this class, I just considered myself sort of like a code monkey,” Ryoo said. “Basically, if it works, it works and it doesn't matter how dirty it is. But the instructor taught us to think about things like large problems, and then break them down through code.”
As a creative person, Ryoo brings his technical skill set to the artistically designed code he writes as well as to his indie rock band, The Willard Building, which has been featured on both Onward State and in the Penn Stater magazine.
Ryoo and his three bandmates, fellow Penn State students Andrew Gustafson and Ryan Keating, and Grant Cheung, Ryoo’s childhood friend, record their own demos and perform in the community. Most recently, the band played at a charitable concert benefiting THON.
“The musical outlet is really great,” Ryoo said. “In fact, in addition to the band I am also in the Penn State Glee Club.”
A State College native, Ryoo grew up surrounded by the opportunities housed on Penn State’s campus, which made him determined to take advantage of as much as possible and to not miss out.
He has gotten involved as a learning assistant and a peer tutor at the College of IST, the president of the Audio Engineering Society, and a competitor for the Competitive Cybersecurity Organization, among others.
“Being here and seeing all these things you can do at Penn State has taught me time management, how to communicate, and all these other soft skills in addition to what I'm learning in class,” Ryoo said.
Editor's note: This story is informational in nature and should not be considered an endorsement of any product or service.