Youri Park

Youri Park Photo

Where did you grow up? What was your path to Cal?

I grew up in Orange County, CA and have been living there my entire life. I went to school at Troy High School in Fullerton and the "Troy Tech" program was the only reason I was introduced to the world of computer science. The AP and IB CS courses I took were mostly for fun; I had been dreaming about becoming a doctor and could not think of doing anything else at the time. I love helping people and wanted to learn the skills necessary to help people directly. Suffice to say, my favorite video game characters were healers and priests.

I almost went to UCSD instead of Cal. They had a better pre-med program so I prioritized UCSD but an overnight stay program at Berkeley made me change my mind. I can't imagine being anywhere else and I'm so thankful that ditching school for a few days to check out Berkeley during my senior year of high school was enough for me to take the chance.

How much programming have you done (and what languages)?

I have been programming since freshman year of high school but I stopped for the first few years of college because I was busy thinking that I wanted to go to medical school. I changed to CS last year so I've been busy catching up, but I'm having way more fun in my CS classes than I ever did in Bio or Ochem.

I haven't done any large side projects, mostly simple website development. I'm in the process of learning HTML/CSS and would definitely like to learn Javascript, Ruby, and Objective C. I have a lot of cool ideas, so I can make some of them this summer!

What are your hobbies? What are some of your talents and skills?

I really enjoy fashion, playing with my cat, and video games. I stopped fashion blogging recently, but I still like keeping up with new trends and wasting too much time looking at other blogs and instagram. I'm also a huge gamer, mostly focusing on League of Legends and Hearthstone. I'm the President of the League of Legends club at Cal, so feel free to email me if you have any questions about the club! You can also check out our facebook group to learn more here.

What commitments will you be busy with this summer?

Teaching CS61A, planning events for the League of Legends club, taking an HTML/CSS class, reading books for fun, running, making cool CS projects, playing with my cat, and maybe an art class.

How would you describe your teaching style?

I really enjoy teaching ideas by using analogy. I like explaining CS things with everyday things that are easier to talk about, such as pizza. I plan on working together with the students this summer and approaching problems collectively; I'm not the type to directly give you the answer to something because I think that it will stick better if we struggle through things together. I've been on both ends of the student spectrum; I've struggled through classes and I've also breezed through classes. My hope is that my varied experiences will help me understand students better so that I won't make you feel bad about yourself if you're struggling, and I can think of problems to challenge you more if you're breezing.

I also enjoy getting to know my students on a more personal level. I was the supervisor for the Publications Center on campus last year and I became good friends with all of my staff members, even though I was technically their "boss". I want to get comfortable with all of my students so that they don't feel scared to ask questions or ask for help. I'm always here to support all of you and I'm so excited to spend this summer learning with all of you!