INTERESTS
As you already know by now, my name is Yekaterina Tsipenyuk. I got my Bachelor's Degree
in Computer Science from the University of California in San Diego in June 2002, as well as
a minor in Mathematics. Currently, being a
Cal-(IT)2 fellow (
list of undergraduate research fellows), I am working for Professor
Bennet Yee on building a
resource discovery mechanism for a mobile agent system.
Starting September, I will be working towards getting my Master's in Computer Science at
UCSD.
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My favorite movie at this point is probably "Requiem for a Dream". Even though
I saw it during the winter break last school year, it impressed me so much that
I still rank it as a #1. It was one of the deepest movies I have ever seen,
that dealt with such topics as human life values, drugs, prostitution, love,
depression, and a lot more.
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As for the favorite web page -- that depends on its purpose.
I am a fan of slashdot
because the page is updated almost every 10 minutes and provides fresh technological news.
Additionally, the page provides discussion boards, references to other
important pages, as well as book and software reviews.
However, for
fun, I like to check out my favorite bands' home pages:
Alisa and
Mashina Vremeni.
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I thought for a long time before answering this question. Who is my hero? I guess
at different periods of my life (even though it has not been too long yet) I had
different heros: my parents, teachers, rock stars, etc. However, I think right
now my hero is my boyfriend. Scott also just got his Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science,
as well as a minor in Biology from UCSD and will be working towards his Master's in Computer
Science starting Fall 2002. I am always impressed at how smart, persistent, and
at the same time understanding and tender he is. I want to be like him. By the way, Scott
and I met in a Data Structures class working on a project, for which I was implementing
Kruskal's algorithm, and he -- Dijkstra's. How romantic!
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Where will I be in 5 years? That is a hard question to answer, almost philosophical.
My destiny depends on so many things. Usually, I don't like to be planning too far
ahead. I prefer to take it step by step. First, I need to graduate, which I am supposed
to do at the end of this quarter. In fact, I am done with all the General Education
and Computer Science requirements -- this quarter I am only taking Math classes to
complete my minor. After receiving an undergraduate degree, I am going to go to graduate
school in Computer Science since I got accepted into a Master's program at UCSD.
That will keep me busy for at least another 2 years. Afterwards, I am
planning on going into industry. But who knows what actually is going to happen? Maybe
I will write a research paper in Graph Theory with Fan Chung Graham and get a Erdös
number 2 :).
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I find Group Theory and Number Theory fascinating. Both of them are widely used in
numerous applications. RSA algorithm would not exist without Number Theory, and
Group Theory provides ways of simplifying more complicated problems: being able to
categorize some set into a group whose properties are well-known clearly makes the
understanding of the members of the set much easier.
As for Computer Science,
I had a lot of fun writing a compiler for a simple programming language in my Compiler
Construction class, as well as breaking into programs in my Computer Security class.
As for the first -- it felt really satisfying to be able to see the output of a short
program on the screen after compiling it using the compiler me and my partner wrote
together. We were even able to compile a simplified version of TETRIS with our compiler,
which pleased us no end. As for Security, it is rather obvious why this area of Computer
Science is useful and fascinating: in the world where computers are used everywhere, it is
important to make them secure to protect valuable information stored on them and being
processed by them.
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I cannot say that I actually hate any of the areas of Computer Science or Mathematics.
However, there are areas that I like more, and there are areas that I like less. What
I like more was already mentioned above. As for what I like less, Statistics is not one
of my favorite fields in Mathematics. Even though I understand how useful it is (since
any predictions done for any real problems are based on statistics), I still find it not as
exciting as Number Theory or Group Theory.
As for Computer Science, I have a very
strange aversion towards video games. I think opinions concerning video games are very
controversial: some people say that the level of intellect of gamers is much higher than
that of the rest of the people because video games are great for developing strategical skills,
as well as reflexes. However, I have never met a game player who is not obsessed, in some
respect, about video games, to the point when some of them are able to stay in front of the
screen for hours and hours, and be absolutely ignorant of the surrounding world. That
scares me, in a sense, and that is why I have such a negative attitude towards video games.
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