New program gives Taiwanese students a taste of Berkeley

This fall, 14 undergraduates from one of Taiwan’s top science and technology universities are spending the semester soaking up Berkeley’s special ambience and some of its EECS course offerings through a fledgling program intended to boost education through global cooperation.

The visitors — all honors students in the equivalent of their junior year — hail from National Chiao-Tung University (NCTU) in Hsinchu and are visiting as “out-of-state” University Extension students through concurrent enrollment. They will return to NCTU at the end of the semester, it is hoped, with some solid Berkeley Engineering education and a positive cultural experience under their belts.

One of the students is Chia-Yeh Lee, who goes by her English name, Joy, and is staying in the International House. Lee is taking EE 128, 130, and 140, and between studying for looming midterms, she had just enough time for a quick chat with Engineering News. [FULL STORY]

Better than a horoscope and as much fun as a fortune cookie, without the calories

Every month, subscribers to MOTTO receive a postcard in the mail with six sayings. They aren’t your typical quotes of the month and range from thought provoking (“If you can help someone turn information into knowledge, if you can help them make sense of the world, you win.”) to goofy (“Yo, I think these Band-Aids give me street cred.”)

ME graduate student Catherine Newman (B.S.’03 ME) created the MOTTO postcards as a way “to express a feeling or inspire an alternative perspective” for her subscribers. The postcard features words or sayings “to laugh at and throw away, or adopt for a day, or live by, whatever you decide,” she explains.

Newman works in ME professor Alice Agogino’s BEST (Berkeley Expert Systems Technology) lab, where researchers specialize in design theory. So when she came up with the idea for MOTTO last spring, Newman carefully considered the product design. She chose a postcard format because it was something people could easily discard without guilt, but still enjoy getting in the mail. And there are six sayings so readers have choices. “For me, that’s a statement about people having many different facets to them,” she says. “Not all the sayings will speak to everyone. It’s okay to have a single solution for a math problem, but it’s not meant for people.” [FULL STORY]

“I’m a mom, and I’m a programmer”
EECS alum marries two passions together in the Berkeley Parents Network

In 1993, Ginger Ogle (M.S.’95 EECS) was a CS graduate student working in database development. Whenever she had to teach a course section, she brought materials, lecture notes, and her two children to the College. When she had to use a computer, she trucked her children to the lab. “I had to. I didn’t have childcare. Couldn’t afford childcare,” she says. “It was brutal.” Though her husband at the time cared for their kids when he could, Ogle’s last straw was when she found out about a fellow parent, an undergraduate EECS student, who was a single mom. “She would bring her children and spread a pallet on the floor and they would fall asleep right there in lab while she pulled an all-night computer session.”

Soon after that, Ogle used her programming skills to create an informal email list of other parents in the EECS department, including both students and faculty. It was a way to organize and advocate for parent-friendly changes. At first, there were 14 people sharing information. Then it grew to 20. Parents began asking for more than just a parents’ office in Soda Hall (which was granted and eventually stocked with children’s books and videos). They asked about good pediatricians, neighborhoods, and how to introduce older siblings to a newborn. In 1995, Ogle’s virtual community grew to include parents on campus. By 1998, it opened to parents in Berkeley and counted 1,000 members. [FULL STORY]

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