Bren:Alumni

I’ve been itching to share what I’ve been up to lately work-wise.  Since last December, I’ve been working on a proof of concept application on the new Microsoft Surface computer.  It was a very fun and cool project to work on for obvious reasons, but just getting back to coding UI’s and spending time away coding lower level stuff was an appreciated change.  It was also cool because there was a press release for the app so our app was heavily photographed and filmed.  The devs even got a chance to take part in on the photo shoots! 

On the technology side, the Surface computer has a pretty unique offering.  It’s definitely a new computing platform and moving towards the next evolution of user interfaces.  It’s ability to handle multiple inputs at once and interact with objects is what makes this very a very compelling platform.  Most devs who sees and interact with the Surface for the very first time will realize there is lots of potential for this platform.  Hopefully everyone will get a chance to play with the surface in person, because the interaction in person really beats any online picture or video.  If you live near the recently announced 5 AT&T stores with the surface machines, I’d highly recommend checking them out!

Last weekend I participated in the Alumni panel for ICS scholar day. This is probably the third or fourth time I’ve participated in the discussion and yet always enjoyable. Contrary to many other schools, ICS has seen a 55% rise in enrollments, a testament to the school that we call our alma mater.

The panel was comprised of Nael Sabha (FBI), Lloyd and Missy Tullues (related by marriage and an ICS love story), and myself. While the faces in the audience were new, the questions in essence were the same and centered on how UCI in general and ICS in specific prepares students for life.

I was reminded of a town hall meeting that then ICS chair Michael Pazzani held for all ICS students. This was circa 2000 when the dot com boom was at its peak and every ICS major wanted to join a startup, cash in on their options, and buy a BMW. The recurring question was why wasn’t ICS teaching technologies that were relevant to the market place? Technologies like DreamWeaver, Photoshop etc. Pazzani in his characteristic straight-forward, low key manner, said that ICS was not a trade school that taught you Java in 21 days, the focus was to learn the principles and the technologies that implement it, principles that would stay true through all the technology churn.

Fast forward to the present day, Dream Weaver is basically a dead product. Even MySpace had to rewrite their entire web site in .NET to have it scale. Yet, the principles have remained the same. In fact, in my own endeavor, I’ve had to pull out my advanced data structures book to solve some real-world problems. I’ve used flocking theory to solve the problem of rendering popular spots on a map, I’ve employed min path algorithms to solve efficient routing problems, and am implementing Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs) to store data that have multiple one-way relationships.

Sorry if that sounded somewhat cryptic, but there’s only so much I can reveal about my day job. My point is, that the technology I’ve dealt with in my relatively young professional life has undergone multitudes of change, yet the principles have stood stead fast. In fact, one of my mentors used to jest, all of computer science can be reduced to a LOAD, MOVE, or ADD operation.

Quote of the Day

The entire history of software engineering is one of rising levels of abstraction.

                                                –Grady Booch

The Bren School Alumni Chapter is proud of our alumni, and we are pleased to showcase their activities in these “Alumni Spotlights”. To suggest someone to spotlight please contact Eric Kowalik.

Jasmine Yau enjoying a tranquil moment.

Jasmine Yau ’03 discovered that a career in information and computer sciences requires a lot more than strong technical knowledge.

A business analyst at Kelley Blue Book, the most trusted brand for providing new and used car valuation information, she works on the company web site, kbb.com, which requires her to rely on her interpersonal skills as much as her technical skill.

“I am responsible for gathering and documenting requirements and coordinating between Technology and Business teams,” Yau said. “I also work with our offshore counterpart to ensure projects for the website go smoothly.”

Yau credits her ICS degree with giving her the strong technical knowledge to succeed in her job, but project classes like ICS 125 taught her the intangible soft skills she needed to succeed as a member of an interdisciplinary team.

“You not only need the technical background, but you also need to be business savvy,” Yau said. “You need to understand processes and dependencies, and look at things from the “big picture” point of view.”

Yau’s fondest Bren School memory was coding in lab with friends and classmates in the wee hours of the morning finishing assignments for her Computer Graphics class.

“Even though the class was challenging and I had to work on the Sun workstation in the Open Lab for countless hours, seeing the graphical images and simple games I programmed was all worth it,” Yau said.

Though she now resides in Anaheim, Yau still visits campus on occasion, most recently attending the 2008 Homecoming basketball game against Cal State Northridge in March.

“The campus has grown - I especially envy the students today with the more spacious and nicer Student Center.” Yau said.

She recently picked up snowboarding and hopes to pursue an MBA to help her career.

“An MBA may open new opportunities for me, enabling me to pursue a more business oriented career path.” Yau said.

Come to UCI’s 30th annual Open House, one of the campus’ oldest and most festive traditions.

This spring event goes from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and features games and rides for children, an Earth Day celebration, academic information, classic car show, campus tram tours, Wayzgoose Medieval Faire with food booths, demonstrations, rides, games, 3 stages of entertainment and much more.

It’s an excellent opportunity to bring family and friends to visit and see what’s new with the UCI campus and catch up with fellow alums.

Events and Parking are FREE!!

For more information, call UCI at (949) 824-5182 or visit the Celebrate UCI website.

The Bren School Alumni Chapter is proud of our alumni, and we are pleased to showcase their activities in these “Alumni Spotlights”. To suggest someone to spotlight please contact Eric Kowalik.

Jeffrey Ma takes a break after writing an entry for his blog.

Jeffrey Ma is putting what he learned at the Bren School to full use at ARM, an intellectual property company specializing in mobile low-power, low-cost RISC processors.

“I work on the software development of a System-on-Chip design and simulation tool, which allows chip designers to build virtual embedded platforms,” Ma said. “I specialize in bus protocol translation across layers as well as cosimulation synchronization of our tool with other hardware simulators.”

Ma, who graduated in 2003 with a B.S. in Information and Computer Sciences from the Bren School, also earned his Masters in ICS from UCI in 2005.

“The B.S. degree helped establish basic software development skills while the M.S. degree helped me specialize in embedded systems,” Ma said.

Ma credits ICS 171 Artificial Intelligence, with providing him the practical concepts he would later employ in his job as the class required him to apply all his skills to write smart Artificial Intelligence programs in head-to-head competition with his classmates.

Ma stresses that current students need to find something that ignites their passion and look for jobs and projects that hone their expertise in that field so they can stand out from others.

Although he has fond memories of skipping class to shoot pool and indulges in a brew or two at the Anthill Pub in the student center, Ma hardly recognizes his old stomping grounds since the recently completed student center renovation.

In his free time, Ma likes to modify cars and express his views on programming and tech on his blog, www.coderetard.com.

Microsoft is hosting an event this Wednesday, March 26, 2008 from 6PM to 9PM at MS Irvine office.  They will be showing off the latest technologies they revealed at MIX08, a conference focused on web technologies, design, and UX. 

I’ve registered for the event, any alums want to meet up? :)  Register for the event here.

UC Day: Welcome
UC Day is the annual event that brings together University of California family of alumni, stakeholders and friends to share their UC story with California’s elected officials in Sacramento. That message emphasizes the vital role that the University of California plays in:

* Providing a high-quality, affordable education;
* Improving the quality of life for Californians through its fundamental missions of teaching, research and public service; and
* Creating solutions for the health, environmental, social and economic challenges facing the state.

This year’s theme will be “UC Goes Green,” showcasing the public service the 10-campus system provides California through environmental innovation. UC, named one of America’s greenest schools last year by Sierra magazine, is also a leader in researching environmental issues, hosting the new Energy Biosciences and Joint BioEnergy institutes.

About UC Day

UC Day is when the entire UC family comes together as a group to acknowledge UC’s academic excellence and to celebrate the contributions of UC and its alumni to the state. UC has 170,000 faculty and staff, 214,000 students, and 1.5 million alumni. UC develops more patents than any other university. And UC plays a vital role in the state’s economy, triggering $14.3 billion to $16.7 billion in economic growth and $4 billion in state and local tax revenue.
About UC advocacy

Help spread the message. Your participation is essential to the success of UC Day. UC alumni, stakeholders and friends are in a unique position to share their stories with public officials about the importance of the University of California to the welfare of the state and to its residents. Sharing your story is especially important given the state’s budget deficit.

Meanwhile, we are taking several steps to encourage and facilitate advocacy. We will soon unveil a new advocacy tool kit with software and social networking components. We already have launched a UC Facebook page – contact Advocacy Communications Coordinator Brandon Kline at Brandon.Kline@ucop.edu for more information.

UCIAA Members Day at Anteater Ballpark, Saturday, April 5
Come and watch the nationally ranked Anteaters take on rival Cal State Fullerton and enjoy a pre-game reception with alumni and students. Tickets are limited. Traditional ballpark food will be provided!

Look for the UCI Alumni Association registration table outside the park to pick up your tickets beginning at 4 p.m. Reception food service ends at 5:30 p.m.

This event is for UCI Alumni Association members only. Be sure to bring your UCIAA membership card to receive your $2 parking discount.

Given that this is an site for and by alums, I figured it be only appropriate if I posted my first blog by listing the four ways the ICS Alumni networked helped me in my professional career.

1: Summer 2000

I joined Net Toaster networks, a now defunct startup, as a application developer thanks to some great recommendations by fellow anteaters Nick Sauer, Chad Ata, and Scott Murphy. I took the offer over a more conventional offer at an established company and it paid off manifold in terms of skills and experience.

2: Fall 2000

Kris Ko, then an intern at IBM, assisted by others–all ICS alum, pitches my candidacy at IBM. Fong Hsu, CTO of IBM’s Santa Monica Innovation Center, despite a company-wide hiring freeze, agrees to consider me for a full-time position. My first round of interviews are conducted by Diego Ronchi and Irene Ho, both ICS alum as well.

3: Fall 2007

I leave IBM to join fellow alums Vijesh Mehta, Dinesh Ravishanker, Punit Shah, and Komnieve Singh at CallFire.com–a web VoIP startup. Vijesh and I were both teaching assistants while undergrads, and I was Punit’s TA, proving yet again that this is small world. Vijesh later tells me he approached me to join their startup because I was always holed up in the ICS 360 labs so he figured I could at least code.

4: Winter 2008 (Present Day)

CallFire.com brings on Henry Kim as the first member of its executive advisory board. A former VP of Network Operations at United Online (owner of NetZero), Henry too is an ICS alum (graduated 1993) and is currently advising us on our overall corporate strategy and helping us manage our partner and carrier relationships.

Net-Net

I suspect I’m not unique in my experiences and that every one of us have some stories about how someone with nothing but a shared experience of ICS helped them somewhere. These four instances are merely my anecdotal stories. These stories taught me that you don’t need to be a master networker to have a dependable network.

I have also learnt there’s no secret to networking. A genuine interest in people and the willingness to connect and share can go a long way in creating a strong, dependable network. I mean, seven years out of school, and I still see these guys on a regular basis even if none of us look like the people in this picture!

On a side note, who knows, perhaps CallFire’s first round of funding could come from an Anteater…..zot!

Quote of the Day

Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.

                                                   –Jane Howard

Years of experience or years of irrelevance?

In both blog postings, the authors argued that employers seeking to find the perfect job candidate requiring X number of years in doing Y (plug in your favorite technology) are simply asking for the wrong thing: 

Requiring X years of experience on platform Y in your job posting is, well, ignorant.

When I was still job hunting, almost every job listing had a "X years of experience doing Y platform" type of requirement.  This was especially annoying when you have little experience (like when you come right out of college).  Companies don’t give much of an opportunity to show off your ability to learn or think.  Interesting study pointed out by the article suggests 6 months as a cut off point for programmers to learn a certain platform.  The rest of the learning is purely up to the programmers’ abilities.