Bren School Student Ambassadors

Hello everyone, what new with me? Well I have become a bit rusty in my programming abilities since my first year at UCI(with Java and data structures introductory series), so I thought I should shapen up and remember my java skills. Whichever language you are in love with, Project Euler is a great website that will challenge your mathematical abilities as well as your programming skills. I highly recommend you check it out…how good is your logic?

http://projecteuler.net/

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Hello everyone! The new school year is going by fast and week four is halfway done. Midterms are coming up for most students(I have midterms next week!) and everyone must start preparing. I am taking three classes: Software methods, Electronic Devices, and Algorithm Design. In addition, I am now in the ICS Honors Program! This means that now I take ICS 197 Honors Seminar, which helps students get acquainted with ICS faculty for undergraduate research. Sound exciting right? Well it gets better.

Tomorrow there will be an event called “ICS Faculty Panel on Improving Your Grad School Application.” This will help graduate school bound students the answers they need to get the edge on graduate school. If interested at all, go there at 4-5:30pm in DBH-6011.

Microsoft has kindly invited ICS honors students to a dinner! That’s awesome! I have to prepare right now! Maybe I will end up interning with the big MS!

Wish me luck!

~Chris R.

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It’s the beginning of week 9! But wait, it’s already Tuesday? What gives? Only two more weeks of class until finals! I don’t know what everyone else was talking about when they say that the quarter systems causes midterms and finals to creep up on you - I feel like I saw them coming a mile away. Oh well, I guess that’s a good thing so I can start studying this week. Lots to handle in the coming weeks: DJing gig this Sunday, tutoring all week, class, going home for relatives’ graduation parties - bleh. In less than three weeks I’ll be moving into my new apartment in Campus Village as an RA! That should be fun and exciting enough to keep me busy over the summer before I come back in the Fall as a returning Student Ambassador.
Oh yeah, just remembered, I had a meeting earlier this morning with my research advisor and we discussed the possibility of me conducting research and possible field research on cell-phone use in the Philippines! We also touched on the idea of delving into the realm of digital DJ technology and the like. Fun and exciting stuff!

Gotta run folks. Talk to you all soon!

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Come out for ICS Day today!

Wed, May 13, 2009 @ 11am–2pm
in DBH 6011

In commemoration of all the hard work ICS professors and students put forth throughout the school year, the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), WICS (Women in Computer Science) and ICS Student Ambassadors are proud to present the second annual ICS Day!

Come join us for a day of fun and games as we lighten up the terrace of Donald Bren Hall with smiles and laughter. Food will be catered and served throughout the event. This is a wonderful opportunity to sit one-on-one with professors and fellow students and get to know your fellow Anteaters.

Games Include:
- Super Smash Brothers on the Nintendo Wii
- A professor vs students tournament of Wii Tennis
- Relaxing board games like Mafia and Taboo

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As we progress along the weeks, the workload starts to become more ardent.

CS 122B (Database Management Project) provides even more of a load, with even shorter deadlines. Unlike some classes, it isn’t only the night of the project, when it’s due, that it hard. It does, in fact, provide a challenge all the way to the end. Definitely not the easiest class.

This is part of the reason why counselor’s do try to keep you at a relatively low unit count- once in a while you’ll run into a class like this, which is incredibly challenging.

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six playing Homeworld, originally uploaded by kaufmans.

Things Calit2 is good for? Playing old Windows video games on the shiny big-screen iMacs. What a good weekend-end.

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Hey everyone, looks like its time to learn about mathematical proofs. After taking my first real proof class, Linear Algebra (Math 3A), I learned that proofs are the real deal in mathematics. They are tough to understand and perfect because no longer is it enough to just plug in numbers into an equation, or follow simple steps. Proofs require understanding of the concepts. It takes lots of practice to get them right, but once you get the hang of things, you will be amazed at how many problems you can solve. I believe that this is my second to last real math class here at UCI. My next quarter I will be taking Intro. to Statistics.

Other than that, I am busy with writing 39C, argument and research. My topic is about honeybees and Colony Collapse Disorder. The poor bee keepers are suffering in America, they need our support!

Take care,
~Chris R.

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Whoa now, where the heck have I been?

Sorry all, I got caught up with my choir (Kababayan PCN Choir that is) since we had our performance at the 30th Annual Pilipino Culture Night last Saturday, which was a success! Got to sing with many cool people and hang out with some Kaba Modern peeps (what, what!?) [random trivia: Kaba Modern started out as a modern dance suite in Kababayan @ UCI's Pilipino Culture Night, 17 years ago in 1992.]

Any who, I’m back in the ICS world and am currently working on the CCTV paper that I briefly discussed last quarter (the same research I have been helping out with the past two quarters). That’s taking up much of my time along with my two ICS classes (in4matx 115 and CS122A) - FUN. Along with that, I’m getting my head back on Xbox Live playing some more Gears of War 2 when I’m not researching/homeworking/singing it up!

Catch you all soon!

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Hello ICS World! This class is so confusing! Who knew that concurrency and parallelism is so complicated.

The class is Operating Systems Principles, and so far we have talked about what are the functions of an operating system and what it is composed of. We started off talking about what processes are, and the many ways they interact with the operating system. For Windows users, if you have ever used the Task Manager, you know what processes are. Then we tackled the issue of how to synchronize processes to run at the same time using only one CPU. Low level implementations such as semaphores and events help to do this.

Right now we are talking about OS kernels and how processes are implemented. For me, this class is forcing me to think in a much different way than I am used to. I think it is great to learn about such a common piece of technology that we all take for granted(Windows vs Mac?!). Still, I am sure I will do well in the class as long as I take advantage of resources such as the professor and TA. Wish me luck!

~Chris R.

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I previously posted about the CS 122B project course I started.

The class is actually broken into phases, with deadlines for different features to be completed. One such phase has now happily been completed. One thing that is astounding about this class is that it mimics working professionally so well:

This class really does force you to do is schedule your time in a professional manner. Some folks, to this day, procrastinate immensely on coding projects, but you can’t do this here. You have a team relying on you to do your part, and you need to do it well, and in time for testing with the entire project.

Some groups use source control suites, just to ensure that no one is modifying the same code simultaneously, and people establish timelines for meetings and testing, to ensure everything goes well.

Magnificent preparation for the real world if there ever was any.

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