(5 votes, average: 4.2 out of 5)
Loading ...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.
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hey congrats on making the spotlight
I haven’t seen you guys since I randomly bumped into you guys at south coast awhile ago. We should really do a get together
Nice collection of four coots and one male mallard in the background. Where is that pond?
Is Fred Brooks “Mythical Man Month” still being used for ICS 125? That ancient collection of anecdotes is based on work in the 1960’s (IBM 360), and was first published in 1975…even before I went to UCI. I think it would be obsolete for use in the age of software developed on the internet by global teams.
It was when I was still there. The amazing thing about the book is how it is still applicable to today’s software. There’s still no silver bullet and adding resources late to the project still makes it later..
Now software dev involving global teams is a pretty interesting subject. I heard a pretty good podcast on the subject if anyone’s interested: http://www.dotnetrocks.com/default.aspx?showNum=322