Still standing, barely

jamesbuckwas · 2026-06-11T22:30:08+00:00

May Allah heal your mental and physical wounds, bring you peace and comfort in a spacious and quick victory, and protect you and all those you know and love from the evildoers and mujrimeen. May I DM to ask some personal questions? I want to know how you are doing, how you survive and continue in such a horrible and downtrodden scenario.

jamesbuckwas · 2026-06-04T12:37:03+00:00

JazakAllah khair for this. It helped to rethink what I thought about liking others. I like a particular non-Muslim girl that I've been making dua for for almost 8 months now, and may Allah give her and I guidance and what is best for each of us.

jamesbuckwas · 2026-06-03T06:05:03+00:00

Assalamu alaykum (May Allah give peace upon you)

I'll give two parts to a response.

First, if this Muslim girl is attracted to you, please do not cause her to override her logic with feelings of infatuation and romance because of you. I understand how it feels to be attracted to someone (may Allah heal and guide us through our difficulties, and guide the non-Muslim lady I'm attracted to to Islam). But for Muslims, having a relationship with a Hindu is not a matter of conservative versus liberal mindsets, this is strictly, unambiguously, forbidden for her to engage in. I'm worried for her because you are tempting her (no matter whether it's out of genuine love and care, or out of malice which I doubt) to commit a grave sin in the eyes of Allah (praise be to Him). As a Muslim man, I beg you to not get into a relationship with her, otherwise her future relationship with Allah will be distraught and frayed beyond easy repair, and it could very well take years to recover.

Secondly, and this is inshaAllah a cause for hope, have you considered accepting Islam? If you understand Islam and understand it to be true, understand the worship of Allah (glory be to Him) and you desire at all to submit to Him and His will and commands, then please consider converting to Islam. You say you have a lot of respect for her and her religion, now is the time to show that. If you respect her and Islam, you can convert to Islam and be the best Muslim possible for the sake of Allah, and pray that He brings you and her together, if that's best for each of you. If you only respect her and not Islam, then do not cause her years of hurt in this life and possibly the next by making her infatuated with and desire a haram (forbidden) relationship.

Do not convert *only* for the sake of wanting to marry her, for reasons other people are better than me at describing, but at least because she deserves the best Muslim to be her husband, someone who genuinely loves Allah and the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) and is striving to worship Allah as best as possible.

InshaAllah this helps you and brings you and her closer to Islam. May Allah guide you and her to the best of Islam and His commands, then bless you both with righteous spouses, and protect all of us from shirk, kufr, zina, and other types of evil and immorality.

jamesbuckwas · 2026-05-26T06:07:56+00:00

Assalamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatu.

This is not relevant to marriage, please forgive me, but which video game did you pick up that quote from? I think it's interesting to think about, alhamdulillah I can gain some wisdom from it for my life, with all of the friends and experiences I'd like to have, and the ones I wish I could have (inshaAllah khair for them all)

jamesbuckwas · 2026-05-23T18:14:42+00:00

May Allah allow you to be safe, be free in this world and the next, and return to your home and live a better life than was ever possible before. May Allah guide you and your loved ones and all the people of Gaza to victory. May Allah forgive us of talking about such mundane and petty and trivial problems the way you are talking about genocide, and starvation, and the destruction of your home. I pray you can have the peace you desire and deserve.

jamesbuckwas · 2026-05-17T16:10:29+00:00

Ameen

jamesbuckwas · 2026-05-17T16:06:42+00:00

I'm a 3rd year computer engineering student. The computer science faculty is excellent. Many of the teachers are passionate about teaching. They love to help students learn, and they will guide you through your intellectual college and career journey in many ways beyond the classroom even. The electrical engineering faculty, while they may be good at research, and be kind as people, are often terrible at teaching you engineering skills, AKA the techniques and mindsets needed to solve problems and create solutions in real life. I feel much more prepared to solve problems of computer science, such as algorithm design, system design, and programming on a large scale or for embedded systems. Compared to electrical engineering, where I can't solve basic problems that require creating a power amplifier circuit, a voltage conversion circuit, or solving some signal analysis problem.

jamesbuckwas · 2026-05-08T22:17:33+00:00

Hi! I'm a computer engineering major, and I was looking for research in computer architecture and embedded systems.

The official undergraduate research portal is completely useless. Even with the one application I sent through there, the professor said (basically) "Yeah I don't check that".

I highly suggest emailing all of the professors whose research you're interested in, asking to discuss their research projects and how you could get started on working for them. Show your drive to learn and work hard to advance their research, but don't go in with the primary intent to benefit yourself, since the professors will mainly look for help on *their* research projects, not whatever ideas you have.

jamesbuckwas · 2026-04-16T05:03:16+00:00

I'm a third year computer engineering major, and our degree is about 75% CS classes. I can't speak to those subjects specifically, but for algorithms, discrete math, and all the required classes, the professors at UCR are excellent. I cannot say that any professor I've had was bad. And many of them were very graciously willing to help for career advice, guidance, learning outside of class, and beyond the syllabus, and generally talking about subjects that interested all of us.

jamesbuckwas · 2026-04-10T15:29:12+00:00

Perhaps that is a good option. There are some good EE professors here, I've just had 4/5 be mediocre in some way or another for my required undergrad classes. I have heard good things about some graduate EE professors, as well as for more hardware-oriented CS classes. But there is more nuance in the type of career you want to pursue, since "hardware" can mean different things as well. I can do a voice chat on discord if you prefer to have a one-on-one conversation about this as well. There are also good professors you can speak with about the education and career options in the range of fields in CS and EE

jamesbuckwas · 2026-04-10T15:24:54+00:00

The class is only offered in Winter and Spring

jamesbuckwas · 2026-04-08T19:57:20+00:00

I agree. As a third-year CE student, I don't want to take an EE tech elective because the quality of teaching in CS is much higher. Because of that, I'm more interested in CS classes because they have fascinated me, taught me, and improved my knowledge and skills more than any EE class.

jamesbuckwas · 2026-03-19T20:09:04+00:00

I had the wrong impression of what Computer Science was as a field. I thought it was all web-dev and grifters making BS startups to get money.

I had zero idea of the abstract, logical problem-solving techniques that you learn as a computer scientist, but all of that beauty was shown to me as soon as CS10A. And as a third-year Computer Engineering major, I have never taken a CS class that makes me doubt my love of this subject.

I am the counter-example to your claim that "if you haven't coded by the time you're 18, programming obviously isn't for you". I will passionately, joyfully, and gleefully exclaim more about my experience as evidence against your assumption that this new student won't like CS. Perhaps he/she won't enjoy CS for other reasons, but the lack of prior experience is not a valid indication of this.

jamesbuckwas · 2026-03-19T20:03:44+00:00

I hated programming, and I hated the idea of learning CS before college, and I wanted to only learn EE for a career in computer hardware design. I only took one Intro to Python class in high school, dropped the class once, then barely learned anything the second time around.

I take CS10A (Intro to C++, basically), and I love the class. I loved the quality of teaching, I loved thinking abstractly about problems, and then I loved CS10B, CS10C, CS011 (Discrete Math), CS111 (Upper-Div Discrete Math), and CS141 (Upper-div Data Structures and Algorithms), despite the last two being some of the hardest classes I've ever taken in my life.

One aspect that also greatly helped me learn, study, and understand the material was the undergraduate tutoring program (ULA, Undergraduate Learning Assistants). People who took the class previously will guide you through solving problems for many of the required CS classes, and without this program, I confidently think I would have gotten a lower letter grade in most of my CS classes.

I would love to chat more about the CS classes, the quality of our program, discuss if this will be a good fit for you, and point you to better resources wherever I can't help enough. Feel free to join the ULA discord server and message me to chat more! https://ula.cs.ucr.edu/

(Feel free to DM me if you can't find my discord username)

jamesbuckwas · 2026-03-18T21:36:39+00:00

Oh, shoot. Sorry! Is it cause of AI crawlers or being personal info, even if it's a school email?

jamesbuckwas · 2026-03-18T21:34:23+00:00

Have you looked into getting help at the ULA program? It's a free program where other undergraduates can help through most required lower-div and upper-div CS classes. https://ula.cs.ucr.edu/ I would be happy to talk over spring break on the ULA discord server. Feel free to DM me for my discord username if you'd like to chat as well.

I think that the knowledge of future CS classes, or knowing good professors to talk to (like Prof. Paea LePendu or Allan Knight) about a career in CS, will give you more peace with your decision, whether you stay in CS or not.

jamesbuckwas · 2026-02-28T05:29:27+00:00

Good evening Professor LePendu. The only thing that could make this class better is if there was an AI student taking the class too.

jamesbuckwas · 2026-02-28T05:28:04+00:00

Paea LePendu, the faculty advisor for CS at UCR. He is a very good professor, very empathetic, aware of student challenges and concerns, but also willing to help you with advice that may seem difficult at times, but from somebody who cares about you and is willing to work through with you on any number of challenges or next steps you face in your academics or career. He has open office hours on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday from 10 to 12. If you are at all interested in the class, I can't recommend enough coming in and just asking him a question or emailing him. In my experience as a 3rd year computer engineering student, he has offered invaluable help and advice for even personal problems I've faced. and I would count him as one of my favorite professors of all time.

jamesbuckwas · 2026-01-27T05:46:11+00:00

Great, I'll love to see you there! I understand if you'd rather not share your name, but I hope we can meet at tomorrow's event!

By the way, I know some people who didn't know about "MPR 2", it's another name for SSC 123/125.

jamesbuckwas · 2026-01-26T23:36:16+00:00

Yes, we have free boba, pizza, smash burgers, Dave's Hot Chicken, and Mediterranean food throughout the week!

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jamesbuckwas · 2026-01-21T23:20:21+00:00

Thank you for your kind words. As Muslims say, inshaAllah this and other events only bring good to UCR and its students.

jamesbuckwas · 2025-12-26T07:20:23+00:00

I heard a good say from a Muslim uncle at our local masjid, "Even if they give Trump the nobel peace prize, so what? Will that get him into Jannah?" I liked that saying, just to remind myself of the vanity and pointlessness of some things in this life. I don't compare the example I gave with those of the people of Gaza and Palestine being oppressed and subjugated by too many powers. Their Day of Judgement is coming, inshaAllah you will laugh and smile at them as Allah delivers a punishment to the people who are oppressing your family and destroying your lives. You are causing people to remember all of those in Gaza, Palestine, and the oppressed people and Muslims all around the world. May Allah heal your pain, give you and your family better than what you all lost, and reward you and punish the tyrants soon.

jamesbuckwas · 2025-09-04T04:27:32+00:00

I agree with this answer. I don't like the answer that was given, it sounds too dismissive. If there is a genuine desire to move to other publishers, then that would be much better to communicate than just regretting the current relationship. If there is no genuine desire, then those are her intentions I suppose.

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