Q: Where did you grow up? What was your path to Cal? A: I primarily grew up in Thousand Oaks, California, which is a suburb of Los Angeles. My family moved there when I was in kindergarten, and I've been living there ever since. My elementary/middle school days were mostly spent exploring the 'fruits' of suburbia (i.e. playing video games and going to the local mall with friends). My high school experience was unique, in that I went to a private boarding school in Connecticut, rather than to a local public school like all my friends. Overall, it was a great experience (though I was unwilling to go at first, haha), and I believe it to be the experience that sparked a lifelong passion for playing music. My high school years were mostly filled with hanging out with friends at all hours of the day (one of the perks of a boarding school) and playing this amazing Steinway baby-grand piano in the orchestra room. No joke, I would literally spend entire Saturdays/Sundays playing on that piano, haha. My path to Cal was very unexciting - I applied to colleges like everyone else (I think I applied 'Undecided - Physics' to everywhere, Computer Science was unknown to me at the time). When decision time came around, it boiled down to two schools: a small private school on the East Coast, or Cal. As a California resident (and, Cal being awesome), Cal was a clear choice! A choice I'm definitely glad I made. Q: How much programming have you done (and what languages)? A: My first serious programming experience was during my Sophomore Fall, when I took CS 3S (taught in the Scheme programming language). So, I guess I've been programming for about 3.5 years. Languages that I'm quite comfortable with are: Python, Scheme, Java, and C. Languages that I can get by with are: C++, HTML/CSS, Javascript, php, Matlab, Assembly (x86 and mips). It turns out that the 'de-facto' language in the Computer Vision field is Matlab, so this summer I'm hoping to bump Matlab up into the 'comfortable' category :) Q: What are your hobbies? What are some of your talents and skills? A: Music is a huge hobby of mine -- these days, I primarily play the piano, electric bass, and guitar, though I've played viola for awhile too (though I never got super good at it). My main musical styles are quite diverse: classical, jazz, blues, rock, and soul. In addition to playing tunes, I also enjoy writing my own - I've composed a few classical, jazz, and rock tunes over the years. Though my composing rate has definitely slowed down due to CS. :P I'm also playing in an East bay soul band called 'Miss Hix and the Superthicks' - we play shows in San Francisco and the East Bay, which has been a lot of fun. In addition, programming is definitely another big hobby - I usually work on personal coding projects in between school semesters. The project I'm most proud of is a program that, given a harmonic progression (i.e. chord progression), generates all possible four-part chorale parts (Soprano, Alto, Tenor, and Bass voices). This was also my first Python project where I mocked up a non-trivial UI, so that was an interesting (and sometimes painful) experience haha. I still secretly want to keep adding new functionality to it, polish it, and release it to the public, so that other music theory students can use it -- but, at the moment my schedule is busy enough :P Q: Have you done anything remarkable? Has anything memorable happened to you? A: The most memorable that has happened to me is being able to start university knowing nothing about Computer Science, and graduate as an extremely-passionate, all-in CS student. I also consider myself very fortunate to have been allowed the opportunity to TA several CS courses over the years -- although TA'ing is a huge time commitment, I'll always remember them fondly. Hopefully I'll get to do more in graduate school and beyond! Q: What commitments will be consuming your cycles this summer? A: In addition to TA-ing for 61A, I'll also be juggling two research projects and several gigs in the area. Every semester, I keep telling people that: "Man, last semester was /way/ too hard. This semester is going to be better - I'll have more free time to do other things." Yet, each semester I manage to make it even busier than the last. As such, I'll probably be spending most of the summer in Soda Hall (either in the classroom, or in my office doing research), haha. And let's not mention the fact that a certain Blizzard game was recently released (*cough* Diablo 3 *cough*), hahaha.