About Me (a little outdated)

Greetings Everyone!

This is my website. Its been created to introduce myself and tell you more about what I have done, what direction I am heading in and where I would like to be in the future.

My Past

I was born and raised in Omsk, Russia. Omsk is located in the south-western part of Siberia, east from the Ural Mountains which divide European Russia and Asian Russia. I guess you are wondering if it is very cold there. Yes, it is cold and dark but only during the winters. Summers are surprisingly not that bad.

My family was a typical Soviet family of engineers. My mom was a successful thermal engineer and my dad was an automotive engineer. I guess engineering was in my blood and I tended to perform better in science and math rather than humanities back in elementary, middle and high schools.

I spent the first 19 years of my life in Russia until one day my dad told us that he won the Green Card Lottery and asked if we wanted to move to the United States. Sure thing, me and my brother were very excited about the idea living somewhere on the other side of the Earth. I never knew that my dad played the Green Card Lottery before this moment. But it did not surprise me that he did. My dad, my brother and I are pretty adventures people and we like trying new and exciting things.

In the next half year my dad flew to the US so he could prepare for our arrival. My brother and I were helping our mom intensively to get rid of all the stuff that we accumulated while living in Russia. My mom was worried and I did not blame her, it is hard to say good bye to everything you have. Not just materialistic things like our apartment, dacha but work that she loved, friends, family, language and culture.

Present

Mid of July, 2004 we are sitting on a Lufthansa plane that is flying to Denver International Airport. I am not quite sure why my parents chose Denver as our final destination but I am very happy that they did. My dad had been to the US before so we trusted his knowledge; the only thing that my brother and I dreamed about was to live next to the mountains.

I was very excited to dive into a new culture, a new language and to meet with a new world of opportunity and possibilities. Our first year we spent adapting, learning English, working at random places, meeting new friends, and learning new things like snowboarding and rock climbing in the real mountains. Second year, my brother and I went back to school; we applied to MSCD since it was close to home and we were able to keep our jobs. Starting school in the US was another wonderful opportunity to start over and choose something we would really love. We were not the richest family back in Russia and we could not afford paying for college. Competition for spots at the universities in Russia was tough and there were not many opportunities available. In the US however, everything is possible as long as you believe in yourself and work very hard to reach your dreams.

I chose Electrical Engineering as my major. The memory of creating an electrical circuit back in high school and seeing it work clicked in my mind. I realized that was what I wanted to do and wanted to be, an electrical engineer. That is how everything started and I am still following this yellow brick road.

A year at MSCD was not very challenging for me as far as technical subjects go. I was getting straight A's while doing my homework on the fly and working almost full time at my job. It was about that time that I was introduced to Boulder. I really liked the campus, the atmosphere, the people and the outdoorsy style of living. That's when I decided to move to a better school and try something new. The next two years of my life were very challenging. I hardly had time to sleep or eat. I was juggling my time between my internship and school. It became typical of me to pull all-nighters. In fact, in the last week of my final semester I did not sleep for 5 days out of 7 because of my work load. My grades were not as good as at MSCD but I learned twice as much in the same time span.

Those two years flew by like clouds during skydiving and I graduated from CU Boulder with a BS in EE. I spent a year at CEPD, where I was interning while at school, and later moved on to AeroStream Communications. Working felt good. Finally, my hard work started paying off. Although I graduated, I did not lose my desire to learn new things. Whether at work when I was learning new concepts or through classes I took at night to receive my Embedded Systems Certificate in 2009, I am always open to learning something new.

And Future...

I just turned 25 and I still have a lot ahead of me. What do I want my future to look like? I definitely want to move forward and go back to school to get my MS in Computer Science. I feel like Electrical Engineering taught me a lot about the hardware side of electronic design, but pursuing a MS in Computer Science will help me to learn more about the software side of it. In the end, I will be a better specialist all around.

Trying new things in my life was one of the biggest joys for me. I have quite a few different hobbies such as rock climbing, scuba diving, mountain biking, ice hockey, dancing, skydiving and gymnastics. I love to experience new cultures. I have been around the world and want to continue traveling in the future. I think different cultures represent different angles and views in the mirror of humanity, the more angles you've seen the better you understand yourself and people around you. So, my future will be all about challenging myself, working hard and playing even harder.