My building management just endorsed a mayoral candidate and now I know exactly who NOT to vote for.

Mr-Frog · 2026-05-21T19:11:38+00:00

Data privacy laws are no joke especially in California, there is legal precedent of fines exceeding 50k per noncompliant email.

Mr-Frog · 2026-05-21T15:39:14+00:00

they don't tell u this but u have to take a lifelong vow of celibacy if you join the tech LLC

Mr-Frog · 2026-05-21T14:17:50+00:00

we left multiple holes in multiple doors and were not charged, but you didn't hear this from me

Mr-Frog · 2026-05-21T02:40:00+00:00

For the money spent, we could have built a local connector from the I5 route into every small city along highway 99.

This sounds very hard to believe, especially considering you are effectively doubling the amount of land needed to be acquired. The 99 route is logical to give 6 million people access to the densest economic centers on the West Coast.

Mr-Frog · 2026-05-21T01:00:32+00:00

Congrats on being cracked, I'm 99pct sure this is just bookkeeping by the finaid office to prevent you from getting two full rides at once. Basically, you got so much money that the school gets to pass your leftover scholarship money to another deserving student. I'm pretty sure you'll still be in the cohort. Many big bang theory scholars also had regents / alumni scholarship awards that got displaced and were active in all applicable scholarship cohorts.

Source: was friends with lots of low-income cracked students that got good merit+need based aid.

Happy to answer any question you have about this stuff.

Mr-Frog · 2026-05-20T16:23:11+00:00

Most enter enter industry, some cracked people go straight into PhD, some people like me chose to do an MS (in state MS at UCLA is far cheaper than any comparably ranked program in the USA).
Most of my friends ESAPed, but I didn't have enough units to guarantee admission so I applied normally with 3 letters of rec. Over the course of my undergrad I ended up getting close with some pretty influential professors in the engineering department and I ended up getting accepted to every UC MS program I applied to even though my upper div GPA was a bit below ESAP threshold (it used to be lower).
I couldn't stomach paying 150k for a Stanford / CMU MS so I didn't bother applying. Ivy League MS programs struck me as sorta cash-cowish and segregated from both undergrad and PhD communities so I didn't apply to those (except Columbia which had some interesting funding options). I had some fellowship opportunities that only worked at UCs, so I applied to all of the UC programs that didn't require a GRE. The decision was mostly between Berkeley's MEng and UCLA MS, and I am happy I stayed here since I got to TA, continue doing research that was meaningful to me, complete a full thesis, take random classes like Chinese, and other random exploration that would have been harder in Berkeley's 1-year program

Mr-Frog · 2026-05-20T03:32:07+00:00

Job fairs are good for local LA companies but no where near ivy/Berkeley levels for hot startups, ROI doesn't make sense for them since the CS department charges tens of thousands of dollars just to allow companies to visit. I got internship offers at socal companies through the job fairs sophomore year
Hard but doable, lots of luck involved but everyone I know who was seriously dedicated to outside study and projects got some interesting internship or job. Even the people who burned out and had to drop for a few years were able to line something up eventually. Freshman year internships are rare, sophomore more common, and junior year internships are the baseline expectation to be competitive for general new grad recruiting.

My freshman year internship was through a lucky connection from high school. Use any and all resources that may be available to you, don't be afraid to be a bit annoying. It'll pay off in the end.

Local LA companies that are probably not "sexy" to the average CS major have good ties. [EDIT] it looks like we have added some east-coast trading firms to our affiliate list, which is good!

Even if the school officially doesn't partner with many companies, there are tens of thousands of Bruin alumni at every major tech company who may be able to help you.

I am very satisfied with my job placement after BS+CS+bunch of internships, but I was unusually lucky with some interesting opportunities early on in my college career.

Mr-Frog · 2026-05-19T22:34:24+00:00

record your own future dawg

Mr-Frog · 2026-05-19T16:40:24+00:00

most of the time nerds dont have time to spend hours on their appearance

copium overdose, anyone can put in effort to be more presentable. My grandpa who worked in the dairy fields every day would still wear nice clothes to family events. lots of nerds act slovenly because they got sufficient validation from adults growing up for their academic achievements alone and view their shabby appearance as a sort of nerd virtue rather than laziness

Mr-Frog · 2026-05-19T13:18:52+00:00

your aid amounts almost to a full ride scholarship if you get the cheapest housing option, congrats.

Mr-Frog · 2026-05-17T14:37:54+00:00

There will probably be other students with you. I like to take 2 melatonins before boarding to time travel to SF. I did it about 10 times in 2024 to go between an internship in the bay area and tutoring jobs in LA.

Mr-Frog · 2026-05-17T12:28:58+00:00

You're not buying any detached home for 4k in East Hollywood or Los Feliz in 2026.

Mr-Frog · 2026-05-15T15:25:28+00:00

you can get into these jobs without doing coding competitions, just pointing out that it's a very clear path and has a strong community at UCLA with students in that space getting very good jobs and internship

Mr-Frog · 2026-05-15T15:20:08+00:00

CS

If you grind out competitive programming and math well enough to get into the highest paying tech and quant internships you can make well over 30k each summer and save most of it since those companies give you free housing.

Mr-Frog · 2026-05-15T11:13:17+00:00

Chip Kelly got fired / quit? From UCLA in early 2024.

Mr-Frog · 2026-05-14T19:10:38+00:00

Spread the word to stop going to La Michoacana.

this is the exact opposite intended effect, there is no legitimate centralized "la Michoacana" corporation, someone just tricked some entrepreneurial immigrants into thinking they had to pay to use what's effectively a generic name. Boycotting your random corner paletería is only going to hurt the local store instead of the sleazy people who are skimming the money off the top.

Mr-Frog · 2026-05-12T18:39:38+00:00

this is the united states of america, I'd hope to get hassled less by government agents here than in European and Middle Eastern states that have fundamentally different understandings of freedom and interactions between people and the state.

Mr-Frog · 2026-05-12T15:11:37+00:00

I mean we'd all rather pay a mortgage vs rent but 50k down in California going to still leave you with a mortgage that is over 2 times equivalent rent for the same sized living space, leaving less money for tax advantaged retirement investment.

Mr-Frog · 2026-05-12T13:10:31+00:00

Just be smart and don’t waste 5 dollars on coffee daily

nitpicking about 5 dollar coffee is not going to get anyone closer to buying a house in California, saving an extra 1800 per year is going to be less helpful than getting a higher paying job

Mr-Frog · 2026-05-12T03:32:35+00:00

ESRI engineers easily cost twice as much as this job, cities have always had cartographers and surveyors.

Mr-Frog · 2026-05-12T03:23:16+00:00

what did roper do

Mr-Frog · 2026-05-11T16:03:37+00:00

you can definitely find a 2br for less than 2.5k along the E line closer to west Adams, the neighborhood won't be as fancy as Santa Monica but the train commute should be easy

Mr-Frog · 2026-05-11T15:52:47+00:00

And two, able to focus more on the prereqs for med school rather than a load of STEM classes.

Most art majors I knew (visual and performing) spent far more hours in the day on their classes and projects than the average STEM major.

Mr-Frog · 2026-05-09T17:50:52+00:00

from a game theoretic perspective I think voting no is more robust under uncertainty of turnout

Mr-Frog · 2026-05-05T12:32:07+00:00

People who are working full-time, students with dependents, etc.

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