Consider the fictional English word “ghoti”.

How did you pronounce it in your mind? If you were unaware of this example used for showing irregularities of English spelling, you probably pronounced this word either as gho+tea or as go+tie. What if I told you that the pronunciation of this word is simply fish or just plain silence? Here’s how you could use these two pronunciations for saying “ghoti”:

• fish: gh—as in tough; o—as in women; ti— as in nation.
• *silence*: gh—as in though; o—as in people; t—as in ballet; i—as in business

Thus the word “ghoti” can be pronounced as…

This is a continuation of one of my previous articles, Halfway through UCLA, which talks about the first half of my Bruin journey. If you are a freshman, prospective student, or parent of a prospective student, that article might be a good starting point to learn about some amazing student organizations, superb courses, diverse people, and the sheer abundance of opportunities at UCLA.

5 years ago, I moved diametrically across the globe to pursue my higher education at UCLA. Needless to say, I got much, much more than a Bachelor’s and a Master’s in Computer Science.

In all honestly, the…

The ACM A.M Turing Award is the highest honor in Computer Science and is often referred to as the “Nobel Prize in Computing”. The 2017 Turing Award was awarded to David Patterson and John Hennessy for their pioneering work in computer architecture design, in particular, for the impact of their work in the ARM processor which is used in nearly every modern smartphone.

David Patterson and John Hennessy created a systematic and quantitative approach to designing faster, lower power, and reduced complexity microprocessors. Their approach led to lasting and repeatable principles that generations of architects have used for many projects…

About one year ago, Vic Yeh and Sharon Grewal wrote an article called 2016++ that reflected on UCLA ACM’s progress. Since that article was published we have grown at a stunning rate—we’ve increased our membership to close to 700 people, organized over 120 events and matured as a student organization. In the past year, we’ve outdone ourselves which has led to us being awarded the prestigious Chapter Excellence award by the international ACM.

This article continues the story of UCLA ACM.

The next few paragraphs highlight some things we did in the past year to further the tech community at…

I designed my summer of 2017.

For some context, I had always had a lot of questions about Silicon Valley and the San Fransisco Bay Area. Some of these questions were:

• Why have major technological innovations of the past few decades emerged from this small geography?
• What is it like working at billion dollar startups in this area?
• What are the characteristics of the people here?

To find answers to these questions and to experience this area, I carefully organized my three months of summer. My goal was to maximize learning, meet new people, and have fun in the short…

The past two years have unquestionably been the best years of my two decades on the Earth. I’ve had the privilege of calling one of the most beautiful, innovative and vibrant places, home.

UCLA has been much more than an educational institute for me. It has been a source of happiness, a place of endless opportunities where there is infectious energy at each corner. There is so much to do at this school. So much to learn, so many amazing people to meet. Four years is simply not enough to fully utilize it.

It is, therefore, bittersweet that I’m halfway…

Steven D. Levitt, in his 2005 bestseller–Freakonomics–wrote a beautiful and thought provoking line: Information is a beacon, a cudgel, an olive branch, a deterrent — all depending on who wields it and how. This line resonates throughout his book. Levitt links seemingly disparate events and consequences with one powerful tool: information. While reading Freakonomics in August’16, I was captivated by Levitt’s use of data to find explanations for diverse issues such as the falling crime-rate in New York City in the 1990s or the socio-economic consequences of parents naming their children. I was convinced that data tells stories. With this…

Getting an internship after freshman year is hard. Getting a good internship; harder. This summer, I was lucky enough to be offered not just a good internship, but a great one. I define a great working experience as one where it is hard to decipher whether you’re working or playing. Work becomes a phenomenal experience when it is engaging, the people around you are friends rather than colleagues, and there is continuous learning. That’s the environment I experienced. Speaking of experiences, I worked at Thomson Reuters as a User Experience(UX) Development intern.

At my internship, I got the chance to…