A Curious Character

In this episode, we chat about why Paul studied engineering, how he got to study at UC Berkeley for his masters, and the perspectives and new skills he brought back to the Philippines afterwards.

Lessons from UC Berkeley

“Getting exposed to the startup scene at Silicon Valley, and learning about the technologies and the possibilities and telling myself that I can make this happen, we Filipinos can make this happen too. That’s why we’re doing it right now.”

"People that change the world are humans, still. They're just humans that are more imaginative, humans that are motivated, humans that see the bigger picture, humans that have vision, the tenacity, and the resolve to attack a problem and offer a solution.”

In this episode, we discuss

You can connect with Paul on LinkedIn

If you like this episode, please subscribe to A Curious Character Podcast on iTunes and give it a rating. I’d love to hear your feedback in the comments below and on social media using the hashtag #ACCPodcast. If you liked this episode or would like to suggest a future topic, let me know by sending me a quick message on Twitter, @ roxsalt or send me an email at roxsalt (dot) acc (at) gmail (dot) com.

I look forward to bringing you future episodes with inspiring individuals and ideas about pursuing a career in STEM every month!

Thanks to Seth Sanchez (@ primeblissrecords) for the intro music.

There are moments when we feel like what we’re doing now is not aligned to where we want to be, but later we realize that our goals evolve as time goes by. Quoting Steve Jobs, “you cannot connect the dots moving forward. You can only connect them looking back.” 

In this episode of A Curious Character, Ethel and I talk about her journey and experiences as an electrical engineering undergrad at UP Diliman, her motivations for going to graduate school, and opportunities as she transitions to industry. 

1:15 - Ethel’s Background

2:25 - Why Electrical Engineering

5:32 - Expectation vs Reality of getting into UP

7:25 - How she got through the challenges of EEE*

11:20 - Study Habits

14:25 - To Shift or not to shift out of EEE

15:50 - Deciding what to do after undergrad

18:55 - Graduate School Transition

25:34 - Pandemic Job Hunting

32:00 - Visa 476 in Australia

33:40 - Pandemic low points

36:01 - Career Opportunities for EEE students

43:15 - How to find opportunities as an undergrad

*EEE stands for Electrical and Electronics Engineering. This is an institute at UP Diliman College of Engineering.

This episode is a conversation with Ryan De Belen - a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of New South Wales in Sydney Australia. Ryan and I went down the memory lane and chat about his journey from being an ECE student in UP Diliman to doing a Ph.D. researching how machine learning can be used in Autism research. 

In this episode we talk about: 

01:17 - What is Ry currently working on? 

2:28 - How he started from ECE in undergrad to working on projects in the biomedical field

4:49 - Why he chose to join Digital Signal Processing as undergrad lab in UP

8:26 - First job out of undergrad - working for a startup

12:24 - Going back to UP as a researcher

14:39 - The story behind getting his visa to Australia and first year

20:19 - Masters Research!

25:19 - Road to PhD 

30:19 - Advice to aspiring Ph.D. students in Australian universities

34:00 - PhD student life

40:27 - Collaborations and research

47:10 - Ry Reflects on his growth as an engineer and researcher

49:00 - Ending notes!

50:00 - (more general) Advice to aspiring PhD students and engineering undergrads

Liz is currently a graduate student and Psychology instructor at the University of the Philippines Diliman. In this episode, Liz and I chatted about her journey to academic life, work habits, and decision-making process when transitioning from one work to another and many others!. We also talked about fulfillment and sense of purpose when choosing a career.