Degree Program: Computer Science, B.S.
Undergraduate Institution: UC Santa Cruz
Department: Computer Science (1985)
“The universal thing that students need to know going into industry is how companies really operate.”
Degree Program: Computer Science and Engineering
Graduate Institution: University of California, Santa Barbara
Undergraduate Institution: UC Santa Cruz
Department: Computer Science and Engineering
Hometown: Cupertino, CA
“I sat in on some of the seminars in Professor Derrell Long’s group in the Storage Systems Research Center. They have a seminar every week, and I came and listened to all the grad students talk about how they were progressing on their research projects, and that made me want to pursue graduate school.”
Degree Program: Computer Engineering, M.S.
Graduate Institution: UC Santa Cruz
Undergraduate Institution: ITT – New Delhi
Department: Computer Engineering (1991)
Hometown: Ranchi, India
“I see myself as a problem solver, and this I owe to my engineering background, because I’m constantly defining a problem, then breaking it down into smaller and smaller pieces until I can solve it with technology.”
Degree Program: Computer Engineering, Ph.D.
Graduate Institution: San Jose State and UC Santa Cruz
Undergraduate Institution: UCLA
Department: Computer Science and Engineering
Hometown: Los Altos, CA
“The Ph.D. experience allowed me to mature as a person. I learned to function in an environment where I had to figure out the parameters myself. I came out of UCSC with self confidence and the ability to figure out a solution and explain it to an audience.”
Degree Program: Computer Science, B.S.
Undergraduate Institution: UC Santa Cruz
Department: Computer Science and Engineering
Hometown: Salinas, CA
“If you really understand something, that’s better than a grade. Concentrate on learning the foundations.”
Degree Program: Computer Science, B.S.
Undergraduate Institution: UC Santa Cruz
Department: Computer Science and Engineering
Hometown: Makawao, Hawaii
“I was always good at math and science growing up. I found comfort knowing that there is a solution in numbers, formulas, or algorithms.”
Degree Program: Master of Science, Electrical Engineering (2016)
Undergraduate Institution: UC Santa Cruz
Department: Electrical Engineering
Hometown: Sebastopol, California
“If you had talked to me three years ago, I doubt I would’ve expected I’d end up where I am, but I’d wager most people would say the same about where their career takes them.”
Degree Program: Network and Digital Technology B.A.
Graduate Institution: UC Santa Cruz
Undergraduate Institution: UC Santa Cruz
Department: Computer Science and Engineering
“Being a computer engineer you can have a lot of choices, whether it’s directly related to computers and making them better and programming applications that do necessary things or whether it’s doing biology, chemistry, physics.”
Degree Program: Electrical Engineering, B.S.
Undergraduate Institution: UC Santa Cruz
Department: Electrical Engineering
Hometown: Chico, CA
“[Being in the Army] definitely was an experience that opened my eyes to a lot of different opportunities and experiences that you can’t find anywhere else, I would say. In addition to that, finishing my time there, I was able to go back to UC Santa Cruz, to finish something that I had wanted to do.”
Degree Program: Ph.D., Electrical Engineering
Graduate Institution: UC Santa Cruz
Undergraduate Institution: BSE Duke University, MSEE North Carolina State University
Department: Electrical Engineering
“The most important thing a student needs to learn in their education is not to memorize this or that formula, or do certain calculations at this speed, but really to develop an intuitive understanding and knowledge of what they are learning about.”
Degree Program: P.h.D., Statistics
Graduate Institution: UC Santa Cruz
Undergraduate Institution: Cal-State Bakersfield
Department: Applied Mathematics and Statistics (2014)
Hometown: Buttonwillow, California
“The skills and lessons I learned at UC Santa Cruz have largely influenced the manner in which I approach my current research on a daily basis. The high standards for rigorous statistical analysis have carried forth into all aspects of my work.”
Degree Program: Natural Language Processing M.S.
Undergraduate Institution: University of California, Santa Cruz
Department: Natural Language Processing
Hometown: Atwater, California
“We’re getting real experts who work in the industry to show us how they use the technology and what they do with it. Getting that perspective is really cool.”