The master of human-computer interaction and design (MHCID, mhcid.ics.uci.edu) program, now in its fourth year, has continually been ranked in the top 12 by Value Colleges for the best value in HCI. The growing program graduated 34 students this past September, after hosting its annual UX Conference at UCI’s Applied Innovation. Students presented their capstone projects to the industry partners: SAP, Hulu, Project Jupyter, Monterey Bay Aquarium, Obsidian Security, CoreLogic, CellMark and Catalia Health. The master of computer science (MCS, mcs.ics.uci.
edu) program graduated 100 students in 2018 and planned to graduate another 113 in December. In the first cohort, 86% secured full-time employment within three months of graduation, and 70% received salaries between $100,000 and $150,000 at companies such as Amazon, Cisco, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Salesforce, SAP and Tesla. The MSWE program presents yet another opportunity for growth and development, as ICS adds to its portfolio of professional programs educating tomorrow’s technology leaders.
MCS Graduate Student Spotlight: Tzu Yu “Zoe” Chao Chao went on to minor in information and computer science at the Donald Bren School of ICS and credits her professors during those early years with inspiring her to pursue a graduate degree in computer science. The multidisciplinary field of robotics was another major influence.
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oday, Tzu Yu “Zoe” Chao is working in her dream field: robotics. Yet she’s also continuing her education as a graduate student in the UCI master of computer science (MCS) program.
Chao’s path to becoming an MCS student wasn’t so straightforward. In high school, she considered enlisting in the military as a way to help with the cost of college. As a first-generation student, she worried about how to pay for tuition. However, through hard work and a little luck, Chao secured the financial aid and a scholarship that allowed her to pursue an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering. With that support, she was able to attend UCI, where, during her sophomore year, she was hired as a student assistant to help develop drones, rovers and hovercrafts. Tasked with building a rover that could navigate along a simple black line, Chao had her first experience building an autonomous system. “I felt super powerful and it gave me confidence,” she says. “I was thrilled to program more robots, something I previously never thought I could do.”
Before entering the MCS program, Chao worked at Caterpillar Inc. from 2015 to 2018. During this time, she used computer science in her day-to-day engineering job. Then, a massive layoff hit the company. At a time when nearly half of her peers were let go, Chao credits her programming skills with saving her job. “In daily mechanical and electrical engineering life,” she stresses, “everyone needs to code something.” So while it was her engineering degree that opened the door for her, it was her computer science minor that helped keep it open. The experience helped Chao realize the value of a computer science education in the engineering fields. She graduated from the MCS program in December 2019. “MCS has given me a lot of knowledge in fundamentals like OS, algorithms and data structure to design an efficient program,” she says. “It also gave me understanding of machine learning and AI, which helps make robots smarter.” This has been a good thing, as programming robots is still one of her favorite things to do. “I especially like computer science because it is the brain of the system, controlling what the robots do,” she says. As her academic journey comes to an end, her story has come full circle. In her spare time, Chao has given back by sponsoring a student in Ghana. “I wanted to sponsor him just as I was supported by my scholarship and financial aid,” she says. “Education is really important to improve a person’s standard of living.”
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