Literal Incident

Jacinte and I went with another couple (Sheri and Paul) and their children to an “Escape Room.” An escape room is a game where you are trapped in a room, and the only way out is to solve puzzles in the room to unlock the door(s). Groups often compete to see who can solve all the puzzles and escape from the room in the shortest time.

I am horrible at solving puzzles. To this day, I still struggle with three-letter crossword puzzles. I did not have a hell of a chance to contribute much to this group activity. If I were left alone in the room, I would probably never get out 😊. Nonetheless, I joined the group activity with hesitation, hoping not to embarrass myself. Jacinte, I, our friends, and their children all entered the escape room that I very much dreaded.

As soon as we got into the room, everyone ran to different parts of the room, frantically trying to solve the puzzles to find the secret code to open the door. Just watching them for a few seconds, I could tell these people are pros at this game. I was lost and did not know what to do. Part naively and part jokingly, I asked, “Isn’t the door right here? What are all you guys doing?”. They all laughed at me and told me how the game works. I said, “Okay,” walked to the door, and tried to open it.

To everyone’s surprise, including mine, the door opened! Everyone was shocked, and I started laughing and teased them, saying, “What are you folks doing? I told you the door is right here!”. The host of the escape room must have been watching us through the CCTV. She ran, opened the door to our room, and apologized, saying that the escape room door was shut but accidentally not locked! She then locked the door, so we could continue playing the game. We all had a good laugh.

Figurative Incident

In 1997, I moved to San Diego to take up a job at Cadence. One of my colleagues (Lavanya) at Cadence dragged me to a “Wireless Communication Circuits” class taught by a famous professor (Larry Larson) at UCSD. She wanted me to help her with the class, as she felt I was a good teacher—or maybe because I had a Ph.D.

I joked with her and said that I was too old to learn new things, and I already got my Ph.D., so I didn’t intend to take any more exams for the rest of my life. She insisted and said that she would take the notes and all I needed to do was attend the class and help her if she had questions. I relented and went to the class with her, without a pen, pencil, or notebook. I don’t know what Prof. Larson thought; judging by my crumpled clothes, he might have assumed a hobo had wandered into his class.

I shaped up after the first class and decided to take the class for credit, despite my initial hesitation. I ended up loving the material so much that I took all three courses in the sequence. During this time, I decided to switch careers to wireless communication. However, I did not feel that I knew the material well enough to work in the area.

Shortly after the course sequence ended, I had a crazy thought in my head: What if I taught the class? This would surely force me to learn the material well. Then I thought, who in their right mind would give me a chance to teach a class that I just took the previous year? I dismissed the thought as a silly idea. But then, after a couple of days, I thought—why not ask Prof. Larson and see if he would entertain the idea?

I did well in all three classes and received an A grade. However, it is a big jump to go from being a good student to becoming a teacher. This door was surely locked. I decided I was going to go ahead and ask Prof. Larson anyway and see what he would say. I fully expected him to say I was out of my mind to ask to be assigned as the instructor for the class I took just the previous year.

To my complete surprise, he accepted my offer to teach one of the classes. Over the next three years, I taught all three classes and even received the Best Teacher Award in 2003 (I don’t mean to brag—just saying I didn’t do such a bad job after all, despite my inexperience). I reflect on this now and feel that my teaching was definitely not worthy of the Best Teacher Award in Electrical and Computer Engineering. Nonetheless, the teaching experience was invaluable to me, as I learned so much in the process of developing the course.

During this time, I received an opportunity to switch my career to wireless communication. Over the next 20 years, I worked in the industry and actually learned the material well. In 2020, I joined UCSD as a professor in ECE. I teach the same three-course sequence at UCSD that I taught in the early 2000s. I received the Best Teacher Award in 2024. However, this time, I felt it was for real—i.e., I am teaching what I really know from my experience in the industry, rather than regurgitating from textbooks.

Had I not asked Prof. Larson if I could teach the course, my career would have likely been very different. That door would have never opened for me.