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May
22, 2004, 16S:
Special Commencement Issue
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Bechtel
Achievement Award: Emery
Sanford, ME
Bechtel
Engineering Scholarship:
Austin Minnich, Eng. Science
Departmental
Citation Winners:
Ryan Doan, BioE
Sarah Gidding, CEE
Kevin Simler, EECS
Olivia Or, Eng. Science
Anthony Paganini, IEOR
Priam Pillai, MSE
Matt Panzer, ME
Ryan Hannink, NE
Other
Departmental Awards
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Photo
by Nick Lammers
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Electrical
Engineering & Computer Sciences Citation: Kevin Simler
Kevin Simler’s secret dream is to be a novelist. The reason it remains
a dream is part fear of failure and part reluctance to sacrifice his passion
for computer programming.
“Computer programming is the only thing that I can do for eight hours
straight without ever getting bored,” he says.
He got his knack for computer science from his dad, who worked as a computer
engineer until being promoted into management. Kevin’s love of programming
is probably one of the rare interests he shares with other EECS majors.
Otherwise, his philosophy double major, love of writing, and interest
in cultural anthropology are completely foreign to most of his classmates.
But, Kevin maintains that his dual interest in philosophy and computer
science isn’t that much of a stretch.
“I am interested in studying artificial intelligence (AI) in grad
school, and some people say that studying the philosophical nature of
mind has relevance to AI,” he says.
Next year Kevin is heading to graduate school at MIT, where he will earn
his Ph.D. in computational linguistics, trying to get computers to use
human language.
Though he aspires to teach Kevin says he would settle for any profession
where he is paid to think about topics that interest him.
Kevin’s fondest memory of Cal is his participation in last year’s
Association for Computing Machinery world programming competition. His
team won the regional competitions, coming in 13th worldwide.
While time management and the struggle against procrastination has been
a struggle for many engineering students, Kevin says he gave up that fight
a long ago. He found that giving in to procrastination made him more productive.
“I realized that leaving things until the last minute really motivated
me to get it done because there was much more of an urgency to do it.”
To help himself procrastinate Kevin enjoys watching movies and is slowly
working his way to “movie buff status.”
Kevin will make procrastination his summer project as he puts off grad
school for a semester to live in L.A. with friends and work as a tutor.
“Going to Cal has given me the taste for traveling and trying new
things, so that’s what I am doing.”
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