Wednesday, September 21, 2011

A Chat with IEEE UC San Diego President Vikram Bhasker

Today we are chatting with Vikram Bhasker, incoming president of UC San Diego’s IEEE student organization, which recently received the “Outstanding Student Branch Award,” for IEEE Region 6, which includes 90 student chapters across the Western states of Alaska, Utah, Idaho, Hawaii, California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Arizona, and Montana. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers is the world’s largest professional association advancing innovation and technological excellence for the benefit of humanity, a role the UC San Diego Student Branch takes very seriously.
· · · about an hour ago
    • UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering Hello Vikram, are you there?
      about an hour ago ·
    • UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering While we're waiting, check out UCSD's IEEE web page http://ieee.ucsd.edu/ for more info on how to get involved.
      about an hour ago ·
    • UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering And one of our recent articles on the organization, which hosted the first-ever California Micromouse Competition last June.
      about an hour ago ·
    • Vik Bhasker Hello, sorry for the delay.
      about an hour ago ·
    • UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering Sorry for the delay. Slight technical problem. Vikram, are you there?
      about an hour ago ·
    • Vik Bhasker Yes I am.
      about an hour ago ·
    • UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering Thanks for joining us. What is IEEE? What kinds of programs do you offer student members?
      about an hour ago ·
    • Vik Bhasker IEEE is the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, although it is definitely not limited to these majors. Over the years IEEE has now grown to incorporate a vast amount of people including the Natural Sciences.
      For student members we offer multiple technical, professional, and social events while also having year-long projects
      about an hour ago ·
    • UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering Who should join IEEE beyond majors? What kind of student participation are you looking for?
      about an hour ago ·
    • Vik Bhasker IEEE is a great organization for everyone. We host basic workshops that teach people general skills such as soldering and also have workshops that people actually get to build things such as FM transmitters, TV Remotes, and Clocks. We are looking for anyone that has the passion to build things, anyone who is interested in learning how things work, and people that just want to socialize with others that share the same interests.
      about an hour ago ·
    • UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering Last year, your organization was recognized by the national organization's quarterly newsletter, The Institute, for reinventing the micromouse competition, which has struggled with poor attendance in the past. Your chapter organized the first-ever California Micromouse Competition which was a huge success. What did you learn from that experience?
      about an hour ago ·
    • Vik Bhasker The most important thing that we learned is that there is a desire among students to learn about and build these autonomous robots. We were a little unsure in the beginning whether or not people would be interested in attending the California Micromouse Competition (CAMM), but after last year we see that people are interested in micromouse and that there just wasn't a convenient opportunity for students to be able to build their own robots and compete.
      about an hour ago ·
    • UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering Will you being hosting the event again this year? What else will you be focusing on?
      about an hour ago ·
    • Vik Bhasker We will be hosting CAMM again this year! The date has not be set yet but should be around early May. This year we are going to focus on increasing attendance to CAMM and also ViaCar Competition that we host here at UCSD as well. On top of that we would like to focus on improving the attendance to our events by advertising them better and making them more accessible. We are trying to further improve our membership to grow the social community amongst engineers within UCSD and also with other local universities such as USD and SDSU
      about an hour ago ·
    • UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering That reminds me that it's Welcome Week, which is one of the reasons we scheduled this chat today. What activities do you have planned? Where/how can prospective members find you this week if they'd like to get involved?
      about an hour ago ·
    • Vik Bhasker We are actually tabling right now on Library Walk! We will also be at Engineers on the Green today in Mathews quad until 7pm. Our infosession to find out more about our events and projects will be on september 29th at 7:00pm in CSE 1202
      57 minutes ago ·
    • UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering In the interest of welcoming new students to campus, do you have any advice on how to make the most of the UC San Diego experience?
      55 minutes ago ·
    • Vik Bhasker Get involved as much as you can! Join a bunch of student-organizations, not just IEEE, and go to all the infosessions and see what suits you the most. UCSD is a great campus with lots of events going on all the time that you can participate in.
      50 minutes ago ·
    • UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering Thanks Vik! Is there isn't anything else you'd like to add, we'll let you get back to your table and outreach efforts. Best of luck to you and IEEE as you embark on an exciting new year!
      46 minutes ago ·
    • Vik Bhasker One last thing I would like to stress to new students is that UC San Diego and especially the Jacobs School of Engineering are always looking for ways to help students. IEEE and the Jacobs School of Engineering are always here to help students better their experience at UCSD to make your education here be as fun and intellectually stimulating as possible.
      42 minutes ago ·
    • UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering Thank you Vik! We really appreciate you taking the time to chat and for your leadership.
      38 minutes ago ·
    • Vik Bhasker My pleasure, Thank You.
      38 minutes ago ·