Listen to UCLA Professor Michael Tsiang describe his education and career path from studying mathematics at UCSC to being accidentally admitted to a PhD program at UBC, to working at Target, to his eventual career as a Statistics Professor here at UCLA!

Sydney Tomsick: Hi everyone. Welcome back to our Bruin into Bruin series. My name is Sydney Tomsick, and today I’m excited to be talking with Michael Tsang, a highly loved statistics professor here at UCLA. He’s been teaching here since 2016, so almost a decade, and is known not only for his engaging classes, but also for creating spaces that bring people together. He started the Whine and Cheese club (that’s whine, as in complain, not the drink), where students can connect with him more casually outside of class, as well as the Fund for Belonging in Statistics, focused on creating community for groups that have been historically underrepresented in statistics. Hope you enjoy this episode of Bruin to Bruin. Hi, Mike. How are you?

Michael Tsiang: Good. Thank you for having me.

ST: Of course. Congratulations on almost 10 years of teaching.

MT: Thank you. I still can’t believe it’s been almost that. Yeah.

ST: When is the 10 year anniversary?

MT: It’ll be the end of this academic year. So I think technically, my physician started July 1, 2016, even though my first actual quarter was fall of 2016.

ST: Awesome. Are you gonna do anything special to celebrate?

MT: I’m not really sure. I wanted to go to Europe for my 40th, but that happened during covid time, so I don’t know. Maybe I’ll have to do that or something.

ST: So to start off, I just wanted to kind of talk about your career path, your education. So you did your undergrad at UC Santa Cruz and got your bachelor’s degree in mathematics. If you had to describe your time in undergrad in just one word, what would you say?

MT: Enlightening?

ST: Can you elaborate on that? What was enlightening about it?

MT: Yeah, I feel like trying to box me into one word at a time is difficult, because I think what’s not said on my Facebook is that I actually did really terribly in math in high school. I nearly failed calculus, and I only really learned it at the very, very end, like right before the AP exam. We had a calculus camp where I learned everything, and it was just, I don’t know, I finally learned it. And then I retook calculus again in undergrad, my first quarter, and it was a lot easier, and I was helping other students during discussion. And then my TA actually, was like, maybe you should think about taking more math. Maybe you should think about taking linear algebra and vector calc. And I had no direction at all, so I was like, okay. So then after one quarter of taking linear algebra and vector calc—I had this one professor who was just super amazing—I declared a math major the following quarter after that. So it just was like a complete 180 for my passion for learning and for mathematics and everything.

ST: Amazing. What kind of student would you say you were in undergrad? Like, super motivated, super on top of everything?

MT: I was very motivated because, well, because I did love math and also because I felt inferior to my classmates, so I felt like I had to work extra hard to to really keep up with them. But at least in the beginning, I definitely was so into math and linear algebra and stuff that I would be sitting in my dorm room, 2 a.m. on a Friday night doing my homework that wasn’t due for another five days or something. I was that kid. But my undergrad self is not necessarily who I am now. But, yeah, when I get into something, I think I really dive into it a lot. Yeah.

ST: What do you think it was about math that really drew you to it?

MT: I think just how beautiful it was and how connected everything is. I think a lot of the way people teach linear algebra, like 33A, is very mechanical and technical, and you lose sight of what you’re really doing and what you’re really working with, and how it’s all connected to each other. But linear algebra actually is one of the most beautiful and interconnected things, and it becomes the common language of so much math and statistics after that. And it’s just mind boggling how something entirely unrelated is like, oh my god, this is just linear algebra. Yeah, the way that it just interconnects with everything is beautiful.

ST: Yeah, definitely. I’m also interested, throughout your undergrad, did you know what you wanted to do for a career? Did you have any idea at that time?

MT: So, not when I started because when I started, I think I was more interested in just having friends and hanging out. But once I found math, I actually wanted to become a math professor. I wanted to do the whole PhD in math, do research in math, be the stodgy professor with the tweed jacket and the elbow pads, and that was my intended trajectory during my undergrad. And then, I mean, I guess you would get to it later on, but I went to grad school immediately after undergrad, and it did not work out the way that I wanted it to, so I had to pivot after that. But during undergrad, that was kind of the goal, was to do a PhD in math.

ST: Yeah, so you went to grad school after at the University of British Columbia. So how was that? Can you talk a little bit more about how your plans kind of derailed?

MT: Yeah, yeah, I went to UBC. First, Vancouver is one of my favorite cities of all time. It’s one of the best places. But I guess the story goes, I applied for the PhD program straight out of the bachelor’s degree, and I was admitted. So I moved up there. It is in Canada, so it’s like a totally different country and everything, so I had to move all my stuff up there. And I set up a meeting with my advisor, who was assigned to me as a first year student. And in my first meeting with him, in person, I just wanted to talk about what classes I should take in my first semester. And he told me that my admission was a mistake.

ST: Oh my gosh.

MT: Yeah. So if I didn’t have imposter syndrome in undergrad, I definitely started having it then.

ST: That’s crazy. Why would he tell you that?

MT: Yeah. So I guess what happened is, in the Canadian system, if you want to do a PhD, you typically do a Master’s first from undergrad, and then once you have the Master’s, you apply to PhD. But I’m a dumb American. I didn’t know that there was a different system there. In the U.S., if you want a PhD, you often will apply directly from Bachelor’s to PhD. But because I was going to a different system, they didn’t tell me that. And for some reason he didn’t tell me that when they admitted me. He waited to tell me in person. So, you know, he was kind of like, well, you know, you’re good, quote on quote, on paper, so we’ll let you stay, but we’ll treat you like a PhD student, meaning he will have the expectations of as if I have a Master’s in math, even though I don’t.

ST: Wow, that is crazy.

MT: Yeah. So I guess the long story short of it is basically that after a year of that too high of expectation on me, he strongly recommended that I voluntarily withdraw from the PhD into the Master’s program. And I was too scared of him to say no, obviously. And then I was too scared of him to change advisors, so I stayed with him through the Master’s degree and I completed it there. But it really was like graduating from that with a Master’s, it’s like, well, now what do I do? This is not the degree I was looking for, and I don’t get to stay to complete the degree I wanted. So then it was a bit of existential crisis time, because, now what do I do with my life? I don’t have the degree I wanted.

ST: Did you ever consider going to a different school, going back to the states and trying to get your PhD there instead?

MT: I think that at that time, I think my confidence in my mathematical ability was super shot, so I think I just needed a break. And so I was more of looking at like, I didn’t think that an academic career in mathematics was feasible anymore. It wasn’t really for me anymore, so I was looking for other avenues to use my math degree. Like I applied to community colleges to teach, and then the big one, I guess, was everyone was saying that a lucrative way to use a math degree is to become an actuary. And actuaries, they do a lot of risk management, they do a lot of probability, which at that time, I had never learned. So I had to learn probability to do that first actuary exam, which is on probability. And that actually was how I got introduced to statistics and probability, was having to study for that exam, and I self learned that one in preparation. So I was not a student, and I was just sitting at home studying for three months for this exam. And that’s how I learned probability.

ST: Did you end up pursuing that actuary potential career at all?

MT: Sort of. I made a friend with a friend of a friend who was an actuarial analyst. He was trying to give me some tips and stuff. But part of the actuary path is having to pass a couple of exams first, I think, usually. So I did take the first exam, and I did pass it the first try, but the second exam is on financial math and like, financial stuff, like all of that, even though I’m fairly good at math, anything financial, just my eyes glaze over and I can’t handle it. It’s hard to retain in my head because I don’t care enough about the money stuff, and so it was like pulling teeth for me to really sit down and try to study for that FM exam. So that kind of fell away as I was trying to have a bit of a day job. I felt like I was languishing for three months just studying, so I got a job at Target to just do something, which I super loved, but it wasn’t sustainable because I made super minimum wage and it was not a long term thing. And then I did some sales, and I did a little bit of accounting, and I was just doing these odd jobs to kind of fill the day and feel like I had something to do with my life. And that was, at that time, more interesting than trying to study for this financial stuff and so I kind of let the actuary thing fall away. But then I started becoming really dissatisfied with having my job, because it was a day job that I didn’t feel much fulfillment in, and so I was just being very like in a rut, and I wanted some kind of change.

ST: So then you started taking classes at UCLA. What was that decision process like? To go back to school and then also to go for statistics instead of math.

MT: Yeah, I mean, I had done math already, so I definitely wasn’t thinking about going back to school for math. But because I had done this probability self study and took that exam, you know, one thing that you kind of maybe learn as a stats person is like, once you learn the tiniest amount of stats, you start noticing it everywhere because of how prevalent it is. Anytime anyone uses data, we’re using stats. And anytime anyone interprets from data, they’re using stats. And so many people are using it wrong, at least in the news and the media and whatever. And so at that time, I was noticing – like listening to stories on the radio or on Facebook or on the news or whatever – I would hear people summarize studies incorrectly or like they make wrong conclusions in the headline and I’d be like, Oh my God. And I’d get riled up about it because I learned this tiny amount of probability. And so I was talking to my dad about this at some point, and he knows that I was being really dissatisfied in my job. This was also like during the 2008-2009 recession, and so he was kind of like, you can’t leave your job, even if you hate it, you can’t leave your job, and so you either have to find another job or you have to go back to school. So it was actually his idea. He found out that through UCLA Extension, there’s a program called concurrent enrollment, where you can be an adult, not a UCLA student officially, and you just pay the money, you get a PTE, and you can enroll. And it’s not for a degree, but you just get a transcript from extension that says you took these classes. And so he found out, he’s like, okay, fall quarter starting up soon, like week zero, fall quarter 2009. Here’s the form. Go to class and see how you like it. Because I kept talking about probability, maybe I should think about statistics, at least I attribute it to him. I don’t actually remember any more, but I feel like it was a lot to do with his suggestion. So I took a day off from work. It was Friday of week zero, fall quarter 2009, and I sat in. I didn’t even have my PTE yet, but I sat in on Stats 100A, Stats 101A and Stats 102A, which is now 101A, 101B and 20. And after one day of class, I quit my job over the weekend, and I didn’t even have a PTE yet until after the weekend. But I quit my job.

ST: What was that class like for you? Were you just grinning ear to ear? Did you just love it?

MT: Yes! My mind was like blown – and what even is in the first day of class, it’s like the syllabus, like, I don’t even know, but they must have done some introduction to the topics that was just like, this is so good. This is so amazing. I love this so much. I need to see where this takes me. And I’m so not a risk taker. I don’t like taking risks. But there’s definitely those times in my life when there’s like this epiphany of I must do this. And I think one of them was when I became a math major in undergrad. Another one was after that first day of classes, and I was like, I need to learn more stats.

ST: Wow. Do you remember who your professors were other than – I know Christo was.

MT: Yeah. So that first quarter, actually, I took two classes from Dr. Juana Sanchez – she retired a couple years ago – but she taught me 100A and 102A, which is now 20. And then Mahtash Esfandiari, who’s still teaching here, she taught me the experimental design class. And funny thing too, I never took intro stats, so I had to learn intro stats as a prereq to taking her expensive design class. And so I bought this book called The Cartoon Guide to Statistics. Still highly recommend 10 out of 10. And yeah, I read that cover to cover essentially in the first couple weeks of that class. And then did really well.

ST: And you were taking these classes with undergrads, right?

MT: I was, yeah.

ST: How was that experience of being in a completely different stage of life than a lot of the other students?

MT: I think it was fine. I mean, I was definitely older than them, but I was there to study and to learn and, like, I was just there to absorb everything. It wasn’t about the grade at all. I just wanted to be there and really enjoy the topic. And I think that did resonate with a lot of students. I was kind of that guy in the front row who knew all the answers because I was so invested. And so I really put everything into that. And so I did actually make a couple of friends and we would study together. I ended up being the guy that everyone would come to for questions. But yeah, I think it was fine. Like I wasn’t expecting to really make friends with anyone at all, I guess. And so for people to even connect with me was already really nice. Yeah, one of them, funnily enough, actually is currently a PhD student in our department. So it’s really funny.

ST: That is super, super cool. Wow. Okay, so then, then you went to Stanford for your Master’s in statistics, correct?

MT: I did, yes.

ST: And how was that experience? And did you start thinking, like, what were you thinking about your career then? Were you starting to think that maybe you wanted to teach again?

MT: Yeah, the Masters was a little bit of an intermediate step because I had been to grad school once. I had been burned by grad school before, and so I didn’t want to apply directly to PhD again because I’m like, I don’t know if that’s what I want. That seems too much, too much of an investment and commitment right away. And so I applied to Master’s programs while I was taking classes at UCLA. And this is also why I took an entire year of classes at UCLA, even though no one would ever see those transcripts. Because I knew that if I was to go to grad school again, I knew I needed that strong foundation so that I wouldn’t feel as much like an imposter. I wouldn’t feel like I wasn’t meeting expectations. So I still actually say, now, even to this day, that my one year of learning at UCLA, I learned more in that one year than I did any other one year at Stanford. It was just so fundamental, and the way that I think about statistics and talk about statistics is really from that one year at UCLA, like this curriculum is amazing.

ST: And it’s so cool that those really impactful classes, you’re now the one teaching them.

MT: It is very surreal. I often say this, that I’m like second generation in this department; that my teachers are now my colleagues and I get to teach the same classes, and I have a bit more of a say on the curriculum now, but I’ve seen where they’ve been and I can see sort of how they’re all interconnected and why you see the same things in multiple places and you know how things could be improved, and stuff. Like, I feel like I have a pretty good perspective on that because of that. But yeah, but going back to your first question, the Master’s was meant to be the stepping stone. Like I wanted to learn more about stats, but I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with it just yet, but I knew I wanted to go deeper. So I took these classes at UCLA, I took them to Stanford, and a lot of the Master’s classes at Stanford were a lot of overlap with the UCLA classes, so I felt pretty good about it, but I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I think it was very common at that time to take the Masters in stats and go into industry, but I was hesitant for that because I didn’t have a lot of experience in that world. But I was very lucky that in my, I think, second quarter of my Master’s at Stanford, I met my eventual advisor. He was my instructor for my stochastic processes class, and we just vibed really well. I didn’t fail his weeder quiz as much as everyone else did. Still failed it, but didn’t fail it as badly. And so, like he kind of took a liking to me. We got along really well in office hours. And so we did a trial research project together in my spring quarter of my first year, and we liked it enough that he kept me on as a research student. He picked up my tuition for the second year. Yeah, and then we started creating a statistics class for his environmental science students because he was jointly appointed in statistics and environmental science, and so he felt like there was a big need for statistics in that other department, so he wanted to create a class for statistical methods beyond Intro Stats. So we worked together over one summer, we built the entire class together, and then my second year of my Master’s, I actually got to co teach it with him.

ST: So did that inspire you to want to become a teacher?

MT: I had had a lot of teaching experience over the years. The very first time, I was a TA was in my second year of undergrad, so more than 20 something years ago, I got to be a TA for pre-calculus, and during my time at UBC, I actually got to teach calculus a couple of times as like a full instructor. I got to create the midterm and create all the lecture slides and stuff. And so I already had some teaching experience. I knew that I really enjoyed it. I also knew that I spent too much time on it, away from my research, for better or for worse. But even then, I don’t think I was really sold on like that this is what I want to do long term. I think that there were aspects of it that I really enjoyed; I enjoyed helping people, I enjoyed the organization of it, I enjoyed explaining concepts to people. But academia, historically has not looked that kindly, or they don’t value teaching as strongly as research. And so having pure teaching be a viable career wasn’t something that necessarily was at the forefront of my mind, especially when I was doing research under my advisor and research is like the main reason why you’re in grad school a lot of the time. So it’s usually that teaching for a lot of grad students is like an obligation or a way to get their tuition covered, and it’s not as much of their focus. So for me, I did put a lot of effort into the teaching side to the detriment of my own research, and I already started feeling like I was different from other academics for that reason, but I was still unsure. I think this is still during a time of, like, I don’t know what I want, and trying to look outside in industry, and being really scared of that. And so I think this is leading into the PhD at some point, but like, during my second year of my Master’s, my advisor, actually, he was the one who kind of initiated it. He was like, if you want to do a PhD, because he thought I was good enough for it, he sort of offered to keep me on as a student, which in PhD world is like a big deal, because so much of your success as a PhD student is your advisor. Getting admitted to a PhD program is largely based on your advisor as well. So having that was kind of like a golden ticket. And for me at that time, it was like, well, do I want to go out into the world and be very uncertain and be very unsure, or do I want to delay this decision by another few years and just like, take the path of least resistance and stay where I’m at for another few years, and that’s actually kind of low key why I stayed,

ST: Yeah, so you got your PhD in environmental Earth System Science. Did you have a passion for that specifically, or was it just because your advisor, that’s what he was doing, and you kind of fell into it?

MT: Yeah, it was definitely more of the latter. But not to say that I don’t love it, I just don’t have experience in environmental science, like as an undergrad or anything like that. But yes, it was because my advisor was jointly appointed in both departments, and he actually, when he made his offer to me to keep me on as a student, he said I could choose whichever department I wanted. So if I wanted to stay in stats, I could, if I wanted to do environmental, I could, but I think we both mutually agreed that I could make more of an impact in the environmental science world, because they had such a need, and I can make more of a name for myself there, whereas I would kind of still be just another drop in the bucket if I stayed in stats. So it made a lot more sense, and we were already creating this class together, and like, I was already kind of getting to know the faculty on the environmental science side. I was already doing collaborations with research with them. So it was like, this makes a lot of sense to move over there. For me, what I’ve always loved about statistics, and why I chose, like, pure statistics programs rather than applied stats or bio stats, was because I really love how applicable it is to literally everything. And so for me, it’s not even about the specific discipline. It’s about how amazing it is that I can use these very general tools on everything. And so seeing commonalities between psychology data, sociology data, biology data, environmental science data is very fascinating to me. And so that part of it was like amazing, and getting to delve more deeply into that world, and seeing how I could bring value to what they were doing was really important, but also it is impactful. I think climate science, climate change, like, those sorts of topics, are really important and not, I mean, these days not valued enough. I would say it was really important for me to be there, and so I think it also helps me become more conscious of my own decisions too, and always trying to keep sort of environmental factors closer in mind.

ST: Definitely. So you’ve delayed this decision, and it’s now here. How did you – was there like a moment of epiphany for you that was like, oh, I need to be a teacher? Or, like, how did you make that choice?

MT: So kind of yes. There was another epiphany that, like, I was sort of maybe alluding to earlier, but in my last year of my PhD, I was actually getting kind of antsy to leave. I was like, I’m older than most students here. I’ve been at Stanford for almost six years at that point, and I was just, like, really antsy to leave. My advisor actually wanted me to stay longer, like, a year longer, but he was kind of, like, not to say that he was my dad, but he was kind of like my dad in the sense of, like, he didn’t want me to finish the PhD until I had a job lined up, you know. Right? I mean, he was like the best advisor I could have possibly had, especially coming from UBC, where I had, like, a really unsupportive advisor. I really got to appreciate how supportive he was of me.

ST: Are you still in contact with him today?

MT: I am, yes, yeah, probably not as much as I should, but yes, he’s great.

ST: That’s amazing how much he supported you.

MT: Oh, for sure, yeah. And so I try to be that way for my students as well, because I know how important it is to have supportive advisors and how different of a life you have if you, you know, have a supportive or unsupportive advisor. But yeah, so I was, like, really anxious to leave, but I needed to finish, and I needed a job. And so I was like, okay, I need to look at what jobs are available. Again, industry was not something that was overly viable in my head, just because it was something so scary. I didn’t have a lot of experience with it, I’ve had so much more academic experience. So it’s like, okay, let me look for some academic things. This was sort of like January, February 2016 so most assistant professor tenure track positions are usually offered like in the fall. So by winter time, most things were like assistant adjunct, post doc, lecturer type things. So it’s like, okay, let me just get something and then see where it goes. And maybe that can just be, like, another stepping stone, a temporary position before I apply for more tenure track things. But even then, like, I already knew that research was something that I wasn’t really that passionate about long term. I did always find myself leaning more into the teaching side, investing more time and energy into teaching when I got to than my own research. So I kind of already knew that maybe a long term tenure track thing wasn’t for me, but the teaching stuff, just because of, like, culture, is always seen as temporary. So it’s like, okay, let’s just try this for now, and then we’ll see how it goes. So I applied to a bunch of community colleges, that’s not really important, but I applied to three sort of temporary positions at UC’s: UC Davis, Santa Barbara and UCLA. And the Davis one and this one were kind of the same type of position. Santa Barbara was a visiting assistant professor position. And I ended up getting all three offers, which is funny. My advisor was like, that’s not gonna happen. Like, usually you apply to 100 things, you get like 5%, and then of those 5% or you get 5% interviews. Of those interviews, you get 5%, you know, offers. I got three out of three, which is funny. Yeah, but I mean, having the background that I had from Stanford, I think was really helpful, but no, it was the interview for UCLA. So the interview for UCLA was way more low key than the other two interviews I had. The one at Davis was like a mock lecture for 15 minutes, and like an interview by a committee of faculty and everything like over Skype at that time. And then the Santa Barbara one was also kind of like a one on one interview with one of the faculty there over Skype. But UCLA was with my now boss, Rob Gould, and it was literally just a phone call over, you know, on a Saturday afternoon. I was, like, in my apartment, and I dressed up for it, even though there wasn’t even any video on it, but, you know. And it was not an interview, like, it was not one of those, like, tell me a time when you know you had to deal with this or that. It was more about, like, let me tell you about the Department and why it’s great. Like, I feel like he was trying to sell me on the place, then I was trying to sell him on me. But it was just funny, like, one, I had already had experience with this department, and so I have history with this place, and I grew up here, and so I knew what this department was like. I knew what the culture – I took the classes like, you know. I took 101b which is now 101a from Rob, like, you know. So, not that he remembers, but I had had his classes and so I didn’t need to be sold on it. But somehow, at the end of that phone call, I felt like I had that epiphany again. I was like, I think this is the job that I’ve always wanted, that I never allowed myself to want. And at that time, it was only on the job application, on the listing, it just said it was a one year appointment. So it’s like, okay, I get to do this dream job for one year, and then we’ll see how it goes. But he actually, what Rob told me was like, actually, the way that they hire lecturers in our department is we kind of hire them for as long as they want to be here, which is a completely different culture from every other academic department I’ve ever been in. We do value teaching. We value undergraduate education. We have a huge focus on teaching. Half of our department are teaching faculty, which is unheard of in every other department at UCLA and outside of UCLA. But yeah, he’s basically like, as long as you want a job here and you’re doing a good job, you have it and like, that is such a dream.

ST: So is it normally, like, more researchers and less teachers? Or, you were saying that it was like half teaching faculty and that was rare? What is it normally?

MT: Yeah, normally, like, so, for example, at Stanford, when I was at Stanford, there were zero teaching faculty. It was entirely research faculty. And the classes are taught by the research faculty as like obligation to the department, as part of their job, right, is to teach every once in a while. But teaching faculty, usually, like, are temporary. They’re just hired to teach a class. They’re not really integrated as part of the department. I had a friend in a different department here who was like, maybe assistant adjunct, or just, you know, adjunct faculty, and he actually did research, I think, but because he was adjunct, he wasn’t invited to faculty meetings, and he would just teach classes, but he wouldn’t have a say on what he taught or the curriculum at all, like he didn’t have a say in it. But our department really treated us like we are part of the department. We get to come to faculty meetings, we get to speak up, we have a voice,

and Rob is, he’s the undergraduate vice chair, but he’s also, like, kind of the leader of the teaching faculty, and so he also is a spokesperson for us. Yeah, but the fact that like, half of us are teaching faculty just doesn’t happen. Like, it’s usually a handful of people who are teaching faculty, the rest are research.

ST: How did it feel to find this, like, community of people who were passionate about teaching like you?

MT: I mean, yeah, it’s pretty amazing. Like my office mate Miles, he feels completely the same way. He’s like, yeah, this is the dream. Like he wants to be here long term, forever, too. And

you know, he also feels incredibly lucky that we feel valued and supported as much as we can be, like, teaching faculty are always going to be, on paper, second class citizens to research faculty, but at least within our department, internally, we are valued and supported and we are appreciated, and they make it known to us that way.

ST: Wow. That is a crazy story. It’s so interesting how there were, like, these three moments of epiphany that really guided your whole journey. And your career was not a straight line. You made a lot of different pivots, from math to working outside of academia entirely, to statistics, to environmental science, to teaching. Do you have any advice for students who are in a similar position, who are feeling uncertain about their career path?

MT: Yeah, you know, I’ve been that person who knew what I wanted and it didn’t work out, and it looks now like, maybe if you hear the way that I talk about stats, maybe it sounds like this is what I’ve been doing all along, or what I’ve wanted all along. And it’s not. It’s something where life is surprising and unpredictable and you never know where it will take you, and sometimes it turns out better than you think. And like there are definitely moments where, you know, I notice how much my math training has helped me become better at understanding statistics. I’ve seen how the way that I explain things is shaped by how I learned things, or feeling inferior, feeling like I wasn’t a math person, helps me better understand what it’s like when I’m teaching Stats 10 and all these people tell me I’m terrible at programming, I’m terrible at math. It’s like, well, one, you’re not, and two, like, you know it’s not ingrained in you; it’s just that your past history, your background, has not been kind in that area. But it doesn’t mean that you’re incapable. And so having been there throughout those moments, I think one thing I’ve really learned is like everything is transferable. So there was a lot of like, oh, you need to use math to become an actuary. But it’s actually that, like, I can use all of this, everything that I’ve ever learned

led me to where I am and whether that’s math and the way that I think logically, okay, that helps me with programming, that helps me with statistics, but also working at Target and helping people, I feel like that helps me understand, like, why I love this job so much, and what parts of my job, or like, when I was doing sales, for example, which was the worst job I’ve ever had, I had to do cold calling and I had to write customer service emails and stuff. It’s like, funnily enough, writing student emails is not that different from customer service. But like, cold calling, it helps me better understand how to talk to people I don’t know, but like, it’s this weird thing of like you – and I was saying this earlier – with like problems that you do, or like concepts you learn in classes, like you never know how they show up later on, you never know how your learning will show up. And one thing that I’ve really enjoyed about this job is getting to interact with so many different people, with very different backgrounds, and seeing how we all think differently. We all bring something different to the table, and none of that is bad, like you know? We’re often so – it’s so easy to compare ourselves to other people with different backgrounds who might have more experience in this one thing than you in that one class that you’re already intimidated by. But like, we all have something different, right? We all bring something different to the table, and that diversity of perspective and experiences is a bit of a superpower, like that’s what makes us different and makes us unique in that situation, and that allows us to think differently about a certain situation. And that’s actually how research evolves. That’s how science evolves. That’s how society evolves. Is by bringing in new ideas. If everyone had the same background and always did everything the exact same way, learned the same way from the same people all the time, no new ideas would ever happen, and we would just stagnate. But part of the beauty of the human experience is that we all experience it differently, and we can bring that to the table. And so I think people having diverse backgrounds and having different experiences, like don’t think of that as a detriment, like you are actually a unique voice in that room.

ST: Yeah, definitely, I would 100% agree. Even if you think that you’ve maybe made a mistake along your journey, I think it’s still very valuable, and that’s what makes you unique. So I definitely agree with everything you said.

MT: Yeah, there’s this one Chinese idiom that my mom always tells me. The gist of it, essentially, is that when you lose a horse, it seems like a bad thing in the moment, but it actually might turn out to be a good thing. And so for me, having a terrible advisor when I first got to UBC, and like, having my first career trajectory be derailed felt super bad in the moment, but it really set me up to better appreciate my eventual advisor, and having learned math helped me find statistics later on, like I would not have found stats had I not done math first, I would not appreciate the advisor I had at Stanford if I didn’t have that terrible advisor first. And that’s not to say that you have to go through struggles to appreciate things like that, but like, for me, I definitely found value in that. And so what was bad in that moment turned out to, like, set me up for success much, much later on. So you never know where life will take you.

ST: Definitely. Okay, moving on, I want to talk a little bit about just your, like, teaching philosophy. So why do you think that prioritizing mental health is so important to you and how do you think your own relationship with mental health, with stress, with burnout, with academic pressure has, like, influenced the way that you show up for students?

MT: Yeah. I feel like I get very opinionated. I put a lot of my own values into my classes, into my syllabus. I think that if you know me well enough, you can start to see why the class is designed the way it is and I often say this too, to, well, at least people in Whine and Cheese, every decision that’s being made about a class comes from the instructor. And so there’s a very deliberate decisions in every aspect of that. And so for me, like, I understand how important statistics is. I understand how widely applicable it is. I also understand it’s not the only thing in your life, like, I think that, you know, one thing that somehow a lot, I mean, it’s not that surprising, honestly. But like, it shouldn’t be that surprising, or shouldn’t be so rare that

faculty, who you know, value students as humans. That should not be a radical idea. Like, you know, like, you guys are more than just numbers on a page. I know that- like, I’ve been there, right? I’ve been I’ve been that student who was showing up and getting A’s all the time in undergrad, because I was so, like, invested in the learning, and I would get really upset if I didn’t get an A. And then, I’ve also been the situation where I would work too much during grad school, and I’d be in my office every night till two in the morning, until the point where I had to tell my advisor, like, I can’t keep doing this. I would be super burnt out and like, I would have to start really thinking about, how do I balance this so that I can continue to do my work and not completely lose my sanity? And so a lot of why I think I focus so much on mental health is that I’ve been there in some way, shape or form, and everything is harder if your mind is not in it. Everything is harder if you are preoccupied with other stuff, if you have personal things going on, you have other priorities that are important, that you feel like you can’t focus on because of an exam, because of homework, or whatever it is. And so I think it’s important for all of us as humans to understand that like, yeah, you’re a student here, but also you are a person with your own life and your own experiences and your own priorities and your own values. And what I think, part of what college is, part of the experience of college, is figuring out who you are. This is your first time you’re away, maybe, for a lot of students, the first time that you’re away from your parents, and you really have that time to really think about you and what you want and what you value, who you value, who do you want to be around, who don’t you want to be around? And part of that process is so much outside of class. Like learning is a huge part of it, and the actual stuff we want to teach you is part of it, but it’s more holistic than that. And if you can’t focus on anything mentally, everything becomes harder, everything becomes more stressful, and you put yourself in such a spiral of anxiety and stress, and it’s a self fulfilling prophecy, right? Like you end up, like, doing worse on things because you can’t focus, because you’re stressed out. But like, it’s very circular. And so, like, that’s why I’m like, okay, just keep this in perspective. Like, how you do on an exam does not reflect on your capability as a student. Doesn’t reflect on your potential as a stats person, or your ability to learn anything. I’ve also been there. I’ve done terribly on exams. I’ve had test anxiety in the past too. I know what that’s like. I’ve felt it. So I empathize a lot with the students who tell me those things. So I try to be upfront about that at the very, very beginning, and remind you throughout, because it is something that bears reminding and also is super important to just always have at the forefront of your mind. And even now, like when I’m working, I do work too much. I do love this job so much that I think I do too much for it sometimes. And I have to even tell myself, like, I have to take breaks. I have to give myself time for me, to like exercise or, you know, spend time with my family or friends, and to not respond to Campuswire posts at three in the morning all the time.

So, you know, it’s like, part of the syllabus is reminding myself of these things too.

ST: Let us get our points for Campuswire. I’m also curious, since we’re talking about mental health, if you’ve seen any trends in student mental health over time, if you think that maybe there’s, like, do you think the pressures on students today are different than when you were in school? Have you noticed any, like, changes in mental health overall in students?

MT: That’s a really good question. I haven’t looked at the data, but, you know, I think it is one of those, like, kind of response bias situations, where I think because I am pretty upfront about mental health and taking care of yourself, people are more open to telling me about these things, and that was true even when I started teaching. In 2016, I think there was already a lot of stress and, you know, UCLA is a top tier university. You’re all amazing students, and so the first time that you hit that snag of doing poorly on something that you thought you would be good at, it kind of shakes you a lot. And I don’t think that that’s new. I do think that a lot of the pressures now are really different. I do think that the admission rate for UCLA is a lot lower now. And you know, there’s a lot of outside factors that make pressure on students higher now, but some things are just different, but some stuff is kind of the same. I mean, like, a lot of, like, family issues or other personal issues don’t change. Like, those are just human experiences. And so

there were always mental health things back then, and I don’t know if necessarily it is more or less now, I think, and I hope, that people are just more upfront and open about it, which ultimately is a good thing, even though it sounds like it might be a trend, but maybe we’re just more open about talking about it, and hopefully that’ll help us all heal a little bit better.

ST: Yeah, definitely. There’s also this quote that you say in all of your classes which is, “We need to remember what’s important in life: friends, waffles, work. Or waffles, friends, work. Doesn’t matter, but work is third” and this has, like, pervaded through so many of my other stats classes too. I just took a final on Wednesday, and the first question on the test was asking to rank friends, waffles and work was my very first question on my final. So it’s kind of like gone to many different professors as well. But I am curious, like, why has this been so important to you?

MT: So, funnily enough, the reason why it was on your final is because a lot of faculty who are newer than I am, which is a lot of people now because I’ve been around a while, whenever they teach a new thing that I have taught before, I try to be sort of that mentor person. I try to be the unofficial, official welcome wagon, and give them everything I’ve done to kind of be like, I don’t want you to start from scratch, because starting from scratch is really hard, and I did that so many times. I want you to feel supported. I want you to have a starting point of like, this is the level of the class that it should be. This is the type of problems and the types of questions that you should expect your students to be able to answer. And so I give them all my slides, all my homework and whatever, and my syllabus, which is why you might see that quote on other syllabuses too. So I don’t know, that’s pretty funny. I think I probably am the only person who puts waffles as the cover photo of every class I have. So if you ever look at my Bruinlearn, it’s like every class that I teach, and it’s just an entire page of waffles. So for me, it has just become a symbol of, like, take care of yourself. You know, prioritize what you need to prioritize, and that work is important, but it’s not the most important thing all of the time. So for me, I guess, like, and it is something where I feel like a hypocrite sometimes because I do value work so much. I do put so much into my work that I have to remind myself. I think that part of the waffles icon there is that it’s a reminder to myself to balance a little bit more to take care of myself. I thankfully, am not someone who forgets to eat, but I know people who do. And so like, you know, making sure, like, did you eat, right? I’ve helped some friends, like, through hard times sometimes and like, I would always have to remind them, like, did you drink water? Did you eat? So, like, basic human needs is, like, forefront, right? So waffles are a basic human need.

ST: Do you also really love waffles?

MT: I do love waffles. I love waffles more than pancakes. But I don’t really, like, eat big breakfasts that often, so it is still a treat. Like, it’s not something I eat on the regular or anything.

ST: Yeah, I also just want to say, like, the fact that this quote has made it into so many other teachers’ syllabuses, or syllabi, and their tests, I think it, like, shows your impact on the whole stats department. I do think you’re spreading this message throughout all of the stats department to prioritize mental health, which I think is incredible, especially for a STEM major that’s normally very intense.

MT: I appreciate that. But, I mean, I do think that the waffles thing is probably mine. But the overall vibe of the stats department, stats and data science department, is really, like, I’m not the only one who values this. I know Miles has a whole shtick in the beginning of his class too about, you know, mental health, taking care of yourself, that you can’t give 100% everything. It’s literally impossible. And so, like, he has a whole thing about that as well. But I know, you know, like Vivian and Nicholas and Linda like we all value all of you guys as people, and we see you all as people. We support you all. We love to make that human connection with people. And it’s not just me. It’s such a culture of our department that I’ve so appreciated, and partly why I love this department so much too. Yeah.

ST: Amazing. I’m so happy you found this department and everyone else did also. Okay, one more thing I want to touch on, because I don’t want this to go on for too long, but you’ve mentioned a little bit your Whine and Cheese club, and I’ve unfortunately never made my way to one of them, but would you mind just like sharing with everyone what this club is, what a typical meeting looks like, what you guys talk about?

MT: I mean, you make it sound more formal than it really is. But it all kind of started during lockdown, covid times. Like, you know, 2020, when we had to move over to, you know, remote learning, very, very quickly, office hours changed so much. Before covid, office hours were,

you know, people would come in and they would ask questions and whatever, but also you would have students who just came in who wanted to listen, who wanted to just hang out. And that’s actually what I did with my advisor at Stanford, like, that’s how I got to know him. And there was a lot more of that sort of social aspect of office hours, that people just hang out, and then we would get to know each other, and, like, it would be kind of a fun little environment. And there was a nice connection between the students and each other, and then me and the students, but I was noticing during covid that, like, there was a huge lack of that. There wasn’t that space anymore, there wasn’t that time anymore. And office hours, I would show up on zoom and, like, there’d be one person with their camera off, and they would ask their question, and then they would leave, and there wasn’t a reason to stay anymore, because how awkward is it to, like, just sit in a zoom meeting with other people, like saying nothing. So yeah, it was actually, I don’t even remember why, but I was talking to Vivian Lew, my colleague, about, I think, some of this. And throughout that discussion, I think I had this idea of like, well, we’re all kind of locked down right now. It was summer 2020, we’re all still in lockdown. And it’s like, well, we’re not doing anything on Friday nights. Why don’t I just, like, have a zoom that’s just open for non-class things, that’s just connecting again as people. And because it was lockdown, no one had anything going on, so I would get a handful of students who would show up on zoom, and it would just be, you know, what is your day and how was your week and what have you been up to, and what do you like doing, and whatever. We played Among Us like once, during that like one month that it was really big, so it’s just like a really random thing. And yeah, it was kind of a nice way to build a little bit of community back during covid times, and when everything opened up again, I wanted to keep that going, and so I continued to have Whine and Cheese meetings. It’s still on zoom and in person now, so it’s a hybrid situation, and there’s literally no agenda, like there’s no – it’s not an official student, you know, organization, or whatever. So, like, it’s just a little pet project thing where I open up the lounge room and have the zoom open, and anybody can come, whether they’re a current student, former student. I have alumni show up all the time, and when they come back and visit, they’ll come and there’s nothing going on, like we’ve made puzzles together, we’ve played video games, we’ve done done trivia, we’ve done karaoke, you know, it really depends on the vibe. I’ve told my life story, like, several times. So, you know, whatever people want to do. There’s sometimes cake, you know, depends.

ST: I could tell when you were telling your life story that you’ve told it before, you’ve got it down to science.

MT: Yeah, this was already the short version, trust me.

ST: Amazing. No, I really love that you have that. I think it’s just an amazing thing that you can get to know students on a little bit more of a personal level, and they can get to know you a little bit more personally too.

MT: Yeah, I think it’s been great. And there’s been some really, like, regular students come, and that’s something I’ve really appreciated, too. It’s not always just like a one off thing, that there have been a group of regulars that have been coming for week by week, year by year, and it’s been really nice to, like, keep up those friendships and relationships. So even when the students who’ve graduated, those alumni, come back, they’ll come back and drop in on Whine and Cheese, or they’ll come hang out with me or something. Also, Whine and Cheese is a Parks and Rec reference also.

ST: You really love Parks and Rec.

MT: Little bit.

ST: I’m curious if you have any like, favorite moments, favorite conversations that you’ve had in this Whine and Cheese club?

MT: Oh my gosh, it’s really run the gamut. I feel like sometimes it is off the wall, like completely random, and there’s like 10 different conversations going at one time, and then other times we get serious about things, you know, we talk about really important things and like, it gets quiet and like, you know, meaningful and stuff. I do really like that. I like that – I still have no idea what I do for it, but somehow people feel comfortable to open up about really personal things that are going on with them. And it helps them connect with other people, and it gives me a way to talk about my experiences, gives them a way to talk about their experiences. And I think it just deepens connections and friendships, you know, and that’s always what sort of matters to me. I feel like, if it’s too superficial all the time, I don’t know if I would really enjoy that, but for people to come in, in whatever state they’re in and feel comfortable talking or not talking. I think that that, you know, just having that space there for people was great.

ST: Yeah, amazing. I think we can wrap up now, but I want to thank you, first of all, for coming on this podcast. I didn’t even touch the surface. There’s so much more I could talk to you about, I’m sure, like wedding officiating. I saw that.

MT: Yeah, I’ve got a side gig, I guess.

ST: But yes, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I really appreciate it.

MT: Thank you for having me. It’s so fun.

This episode of “Bruin to Bruin” was brought to you by Daily Bruin Podcasts. You can listen to this episode and all other Daily Bruin podcasts on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and SoundCloud. The audio and transcript of today’s interview are available at dailybruin.com. I’m Sydney Tomsick. Thank you for listening.