Photo of Sayali Kakade in the CSIL lab

Sayali Kakade, Class of 2019

(Interviewed Senior year)

About Sayali

  • Hometown: Cupertino, CA
  • Favorite Class: Computer Architecture (ECE 154B)
  • Senior Project: ECE 189 (Qualcomm CE Capstone Award) – Eternal Flight: an in-flight battery exchange system that extends drones flight time by eliminating the need to land and recharge 
  • Organizations: Tau Beta Pi Association - The Engineering Honor Society
  • Last Book Read: The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
  • Hobbies: listen to music, traveling, dancing, hanging out w/ friends, working out

Sayali's Favorites

  • Band / Performer: Kanye West
  • TV Show: The Office / Game of Thrones
  • Movie: Aladdin
  • Book / Author: A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
  • Sport: Watching - basketball and Playing - swimming
  • Activity: Netflix
  • Interesting Aside About You: I played on my high school water polo team for all four years

High School Experience

  • Favorite class: American Literature Honors was my favorite class. I’ve always loved to read so I would often read a whole book that we were assigned in just a few days. I loved the analytical discussions and that class made me think about literature in a different way for the first time.
  • High school mentor?: Thinking back to my high school experience, the teacher that had the most impact on my academic career was my APCS teacher. During my senior year, I signed up for APCS as my first programming class ever. Although the teacher knew it would be challenging since I had no background in computer science and most of the students had at least taken Java before, he encouraged me to stay in the class, and when I struggled with assignments, he would often stay for a few hours after school just to help me work through bugs and understand concepts. It would have been easy to be discouraged by a difficult beginning but he made sure that I didn’t lose confidence in my abilities.
  • Share what your college search was like: I knew I would probably stay in California and more likely than not, go to a UC since I wanted to be close to my family. I applied to most of the UCs and visited a few different campuses, but in particular, attending Spring Insight (an event for admitted freshmen that usually takes place in April) is what made me sure about attending UCSB.

Preparation for College

  • What prepared you the most to study engineering in college?: In terms of academics, taking certain math classes (outlined in the next question) helped prepare me. However, something that I think is much harder to prepare for is the mental aspect of studying engineering in college. There were many late nights in labs, weeks spent studying, sacrifices, stressful deadlines, etc. and it was important for me to learn how to take time to reflect on my priorities, the decisions I made, and how I could do better for myself. I think that much of this learning and growth happens in college itself, but it’s helpful to recognize that it’s important to take care of yourself (for example, I know that I need to sleep at least 8 hours and work out, and those are things that I can’t give up).
  • Are there any classes that you suggest CE students take before entering UCSB?: I would recommend taking as many math classes as possible. If you’re able to take the AP test or take the classes at a local community college, it’ll help you to forgo many of the lower division math requirements, giving you more time to focus on CE electives, research, etc. Additionally, having a strong math background is important to be successful in engineering, and I often found myself reviewing old math class materials. There is a website called UC Assist which can help you convert community college classes to their equivalent UC classes, which I found very helpful. If you have the chance, taking any kind of programming or electrical engineering class would be a great start as well.
  • Any additional experiences that you would like to share with students to help them prepare for college?: I think it’s important to keep in mind that everyone in college comes from a different background and to focus on yourself - don’t be worried about people who come in with more programming experience than you and don’t put anyone down who hasn’t been provided the same opportunities as you. If you’re coming in with less experience, it can be intimidating to be surrounded by people who have already taken all of the lower division classes in high school, but the curriculum definitely allows students with no prior experience the chance to learn everything they need to know before moving forward.

Favorite Things About

  • UCSB: The campus is picturesque and the weather is (mostly) always great - we’re located right next to the ocean and surrounded by beautiful mountains. Whenever I need a break from studying, I can step right outside of Harold Frank Hall (our ECE building) to take a walk on the beach. In freshman year, I even had a sunrise ocean view right from my dorm room window in Anacapa. The students and faculty at UCSB are happy and kind. UCSB is truly one of the most close knit and caring communities that I have been a part of.
  • CE Program: The professors are passionate, knowledgeable, and always willing to dedicate extra time and resources towards ensuring that students understand the material and succeed. One of my fondest memories in college was after I had failed a midterm, the professor met with me to walk through all my answers and even told me that some of my solutions were brilliant. His encouragement and efforts helped me ace the class in the end. The ECE and CS advisors also have great mailing lists where they send out information about research opportunities and programs, scholarships that students can apply for, special electives that are being offered, and activities that might interest the ECE students.
  • Santa Barbara: I like that Santa Barbara is conveniently located a little over an hour away from LA because it’s nice to live in a quieter city, but have the option to visit LA over the weekends or to travel through the LAX airport. Santa Barbara has many outdoor activities such as hiking trails, surfing, camping, paddle boarding, etc. There are even organized student groups that take skiing trips, surfing lessons, hiking trips, etc.

Why CE / UCSB?

  • Why Computer Engineering?: My original plan was to major in Biology and apply to medical school, but I didn’t enjoy AP Biology (during junior year in high school) at all. When admissions season rolled around in the fall of my senior year of high school, I had been enrolled in APCS for a few weeks, so on a whim, I applied as a computer engineering major to half the schools and chemical engineering major at the other half. As the year went on, I ended up really enjoying learning how to program (and ended up really not liking chemistry) so I finalized my decision to major in CE.
  • Why UCSB?: The first time I visited UCSB was during Spring Insight, a weekend in April where admitted applicants are invited to explore the school. I loved the beautiful campus and met so many great people. We also split up into groups by major. I learned more about the CE program, toured the labs, and received a demonstration of various student projects. The main things that attracted me to the UCSB program were the small CE class sizes (and small College of Engineering in general - it felt like students got very individualized attention), as well as hearing about all the electives that were offered. One of the professors even spoke about how UCSB and the Santa Barbara area, in general, has a great entrepreneurship culture and how many students go on to start their own businesses.
  • How did you hear about UCSB's Computer Engineering Program?: The first time I had heard of the term computer engineering is when I was applying to colleges. I looked up the difference between computer science, computer engineering, and electrical engineering, and chose to apply for the computer engineering major because it seemed like a good mix between hardware and software and I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do yet. The decision ended up working out perfectly.

Advice to students/parents about UCSB and CE

  • Advice on applying to UCSB: Students – It’s a lot easier to transfer out of the College of Engineering than it is to transfer in. Once you are in the College of Engineering, it is easier to transfer between majors (especially since most of the lower division requirements are the same). If you think you might be interested in an engineering degree, I would recommend applying to the College of Engineering. Look through the curriculum, electives, clubs, and activities, and potentially schedule a visit to campus. It’s important to choose a school that will be a good fit for you and offer the specific courses or research opportunities that you are looking for.
    Parents – I was the first in my family to apply for college in the United States so it definitely involved a lot of learning and challenges. My parents were great at helping me out by learning as much as they could about the process and being there with me every step of the way. Applying to college seemed like an overwhelming task to me, so having my parents for support and encouragement helped me manage the large amount of work that college applications involve. I was very grateful that my parents were supportive of my decisions and didn’t pressure me to choose a certain major or field.
  • Explain to students and parents what you can do with a computer engineering degree: A computer engineering degree allows you to do anything that you can do with either an electrical engineering degree or a computer science degree based on the upper division electives and sequences you choose. While you might have the option to work in software engineering as a CS major or electrical engineering as an EE major, the CE degree allows you to explore and choose from both sides of the field, as well as the intersection of the two (intersectional technologies such as embedded systems, computer architecture, VLSI, etc.) It allows the flexibility to first explore all three of these fields, and then choose which pathway(s) you’d want to explore further, making it a great option for further academic education, since you would be capable to apply for any of the three (EE, CS, or CE) as a graduate major.

The Curriculum

  • What are the benefits of a program that is a cross between Computer Science and Electrical Engineering?: I think the biggest benefit of the program is that you have a much broader range of elective choices when completing your upper division major. Throughout the first two years, you develop a strong foundation in both software and hardware fundamentals, which gives you a competitive edge and enhances your holistic understanding of how and why computers work. I am personally glad that I chose computer engineering because it took away a lot of the abstraction that comes with just learning computer science or electrical engineering. For example, instead of only learning how to code, I now understand how the code that I write is actually compiled into assembly language and processed at the hardware register level. You can also decide to specialize in EE or CS later on if you decide to do so. The program offers many sequences and elective choices. I personally chose sequences and electives that leaned towards software development: distributed systems (CS 176A and CS 171) and embedded systems (ECE 153A/B) were my two sequences. However, there are also many students that decided to take the control systems or signal processing sequences (more EE based).
  • What have you learned that has surprised you so far?: I’ve been most surprised by learning in great depth how a computer works. Before coming to college, I thought that majoring in computer engineering would just teach me how to program, but after taking classes such as OS and computer architecture, I felt as though I could look at a phone or a computer, and for the first time, appreciate the full extent of how much innovation went into developing the things that we are surrounded by every day.
  • What has your experience been like taking the Math and Physics core classes? The physics series included some of my favorite classes at UCSB. I loved studying the material and since I had never taken an in-depth physics class like this before, I feel like it opened up a whole new way of understanding how the world worked. There were so many times we would learn about a new physics concept and I would be blown away at how applicable and observable the concepts were. My advice for taking any physics/math core classes (and engineering classes in general) is to quickly learn what works best for you (learn how to learn in a way that works for you). For me, reading the textbook and taking the time to understand the concepts was key. I didn’t spend as much time doing the homework as I spent watching several videos about any given topic and really drilling down into why something was the way that it was. To me, this was much more valuable than trying to memorize the equations or skimming over lecture slides, and doing practice problems, because as soon as I understood the concepts, I could apply them to any problem with ease.
  • What was / is your most challenging but rewarding course? My most challenging but rewarding course was CS 170 - Operating Systems. We had four large labs with a final goal of having written the code for our own simplified operating system (i.e. we ended up programming a simple OS from scratch). Time management was extremely important for this class - the labs would be assigned a few weeks in advance but each one ended up taking hours and hours of work. I spent a lot of time working in CSIL that quarter and made sure to start the labs early and reach out for help when needed. It was also challenging because each new lab built on the previous labs so it was important to complete each assignment on time before moving on. It was extremely rewarding to run our functioning OS at the end of the quarter, test it with various commands, and see how the functionality of our OS was similar to that of Linux.
  • Talk about your Capstone (189A/B/C) experience so far: Capstone is a yearlong computer engineering sequence taken during senior year in which you work with a group to complete a final project, usually involving interfacing various hardware and software components. It is a cumulative experience that takes advantage of all the skills you have learned over the previous three years and gives you a chance to apply them towards the comprehensive goal of developing a real product. I think it provides a great chance for students to increase their team-working and problem solving abilities. Students need to engineer creative solutions and overcome obstacles while staying within time and budget constraints, a situation that is highly encountered in industry.
  • Have you done an internship? I’ve completed two internships during my undergraduate education. My first internship was the summer after sophomore year at Google in Mountain View as an Engineering Practicum Intern. I programmed across the full stack to implement a feature that summarized product reviews on the Google Express website. My second internship was the summer after my junior year at Google New York on the Ads Opportunities team as a Software Engineering Intern. I again programmed across the full stack to surface a new view on the Ads Opportunities platform. I had a great experience during both of my internships, which helped me to grow as a developer and apply the knowledge I had learned in school to a real world setting.
  • Have you had any on-campus research opportunities at UCSB? I didn’t participate in an on-campus research program, but reached out to a professor and independently participated in a biology research lab during freshmen (I wrote computational programs to help process large quantities of gene expression data). In general, I feel that professors are eager to have undergraduate researchers in their lab and there are many research programs available that match interested students to professors/research labs.

Student Life

  • What is campus life like for Computer Engineering students? There are always students working at CSIL (the CS/ECE computer lab) so it is nice to be able to access a space to collaborate with peers and get work done. I think that the CE class is small enough that everyone becomes close friends as the years pass, so your fellow classmates are very helpful, open, and welcoming. A part of the campus that I felt set UCSB apart from other schools is that our library is open 24/7. This was important to me because it gave me a place to go when I needed to focus and get work done, regardless of the time of day.
  • What is the social scene like for CE students? I would describe the social scene at UCSB as very versatile. IV is a geographically small community, and due to the compacted space, I think UCSB students are able to socialize to a much greater extent (when I visited friends at other college campuses, everyone lived in a more spread out and isolated manner). I think UCSB is like any other college in that it has many options such as parties, outdoor activities, free movie nights and comedy shows, etc. As a CE student, I sometimes felt as if I had a bit more homework or had to spend more time in the lab compared to friends in other majors, so it’s important to be able to manage your time well and not be discouraged by needing to spend some extra time studying.

The Future

  • What are your plans after graduation?: I plan to go into industry in the software engineering field (specifically the Google NY Ads team). My experiences as an intern definitely influenced my decision. For me, it was satisfying to learn various new technologies independently and be able to apply what I learned towards the development of a tangible product. I am, however, strongly considering the possibility of returning to academia after a few years of working in industry. In the meantime, I’d like to gain more insight into the state of different fields within the software engineering industry and on which pathway interests me the most.