Here is something I wrote last year and just hasn't been posted till now (and what better way to finish off Engineers Week?!):
"This is the story the how the ECE/CSE group came about, Matthew TW Huang's perspective.
It all started in the general chemistry class, CHEM127, which had a horrid reputation. Going to the discussion with the Teacher Assistant named Rob Busch. I vividly remember this exact moment because I did not know anyone in this class so I just sat where ever I could find a seat (Second row, second column from the right) and Rob explains how to remember his name, it's like the beer! This is the first glimpse of the classmates I will have to spend my next 4 months with, maybe the next 4 years! As with every freshmen class, we introduce ourselves with our names, major, and where we're from. As with the majority of UConn, most kids were from Connecticut (They named towns I've never heard before). Most of the majors were undecided or Engineering of some sort. Most of them unknowingly going to drop out of engineering within the first semester. Some outrageous stat like 25% of all declared engineers drop engineering in the first semester. Only to be intentionally weeded further till the second semester of junior year. Back to the chemistry discussion, I pay attention to people's name, major, and hometown in increasing order. Hoping I can meet someone that has similarities to me, from Rhode Island (Or anyone from out of state), or someone else majoring in Electrical Engineering. Then, I hear a kid from Pennsylvania, he seemed cool. Glasses just like me, but sadly he was a biomedical engineering major and I didn't get his name. Then, the rest of the people essentially blended into with computer science, chemistry, and other majors with blended towns in Connecticut. And in the Chemistry lecture, there was a kid with a large head that thought he knew everything (but to give him credit, he knew what he was doing).
Then, as classes passed by week by week, like calculus (No, I don't have the quadratic equation memorized for those jerks that laughed at me!) and C++ programming, I realized some of the kids are in many of the same classes. I was very shy at this point and didn't talk to people unless they talked to me. Thinking that some of these kids potentially could be as cool as me, I decided to talk to them in class. Attempting to escape my not-too-bright chemistry partner, I tried to join the cool kids that seemed to have extreme amounts of fun. Turns out I couldn't escape and had to do the experiments mostly independently. But the fun students were in my calculus class. So I decided to talk to them in that class. And boom, the relationship started between Steve, Chris, and me. Chris was just there though. Steven and I decided to study together quite frequently in the Stunion with an awesome girl named Jennifer. From the start, Steven was destined to be a, Apple user, with Jenn and I using our awesome mac (when they were less popular of course, I'm a hipster!). Of course the incident of Dell helped the cause too. The awesome days and nights spent in the stunion lobby spending on Calculus webassign, chemistry problem sets, and computer programming in C++. I only had trouble with the C++ since I have never programmed before that. But I usually had no trouble if the chemistry and calculus. The first semester was only glimpse of what was to come for me in the future in terms of friends.
Since every semester was a new start, I looked forward to the spring semester with the potential of meeting more people. I didn't take many engineering classes except for Java and ECE101 introduction to the electrical engineering toolset. But I did take physics to finish it off since I only needed one semester of it after getting credit in high school. But not many engineers took this class. But unknown to me until a year or two later, I meet one of my good friends in this class. With no direction to go on a Matlab project, I ask the person next to me if he had any clue. Of course he didn't so I ask him questions, the basics, what year he was, major, and where's he from. Turns out the idiot switched from biology to go to computer science engineering in his junior year. I thought this kid was nuts and a total fool. Nice kid but a fool; not to mention red-headed too. So I continue on with my Matlab assignments alone. This semester, I didn't know many people in my classes and worked independently for the most part. On occasion, I would work with Steve and other kids but they were in different classes and the pace was not the same.
Then, going into my second year, I was excited for the electrical engineering classes to start. I would finally get to see and draw circuits. I learned the basics in Physics in high school with Chun (Second in Science Olympiad with Kayla for circuits!). But it turns out that would be the second semester. The first semester would be digital logic with Professor Shi. Quite an impression he made to the class by coming into class everyday with a Panda-Express drink, an easily visible habit of his. This is the first class where CSE and ECE majors get separated from the rest of the engineering majors for the first time. Knowing this, I knew that these are my peers that the rest of my college experience will be with. This class was quite a diverse group of kids. You had the group of kids that looked like they absolutely did not care for lecture in the back, the kids in the front left that listened to the lecture in every detail and seemed to be very silent. Then, you had our group. After a couple of weeks, people usually stick to one general seat, so we get to know each other pretty well. Our chemistry worked out pretty well causing a dynamic environment for all who was part of it. There was Steve, Ted, Timmy, Ronnie, Ryan, and Chris. While the digital logic came easy to me, it didn't for the others so we helped each other learn the material. We definitely had our troubled times and the awesome memories made up for it.
Fast forward two semesters, and I actually live with two of those fools, Timmy and Steve. And the Fall semester of my Junior Year began and I didn't know at the time but it may be the most influential period of my college career. This is the time where we split off from the rest of the engineering disciplines and it ended up being the Electrical, Computer, and Computer Science engineers in our classes. And that semester, we took the class we had been warned about by the upper classmen just a year before, Signals and Systems by Pattipati. To be honest, the hype probably prepared me for the challenge but I didn't think it was very difficult after the first couple assignments. One night, working on our homework for the class into the late night, a blonde kid and the red-headed from physics freshmen year came to our group and asked for help (which became constant throughout the entire class). I loved these two guys from the instant I met them, both computer science. Now they are two of my great friends, Eric and Brendan. And after a few weeks of getting to know each other, the three of us had the brillant idea of have a night of pancakes, video games, and most importantly bacon! And the class also introduced me to one of my best friends, Brian who turned out to be the know-it-all from Chemistry class Freshmen year! We invited the others to join (Notably: An old Marine Tim, Johnny K who you can't take to Philly, Good-Looking Ryan,Dave Sidoti, Christian, Messner) and the rest was history. History, I might add, that was stored on Google Wave (Yeah, remember that?) which I still have. (History that may be told in this blog in more detail in the future)"
