Thank You, My Friend, and Farewell…

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Last night, on December 21st, 2011, Jesus Guzman passed away. I am not going into the details; what matters is remembering how he lived and to share my memories about him.

The picture above is two years old. Jesus is the gentlemen with the white and brown-striped shirt. I was planning to post just a picture of him, but I felt that it was better if I shared a picture of him surrounded by good friends.

I knew Jesus since Sophomore year in college. I first met him when he was the tutor for the computer science and computer engineering department. It was not hard to spot him; he was usually running around getting to as many students as he can to provide help on their assignments. Before I met Jesus, my experience with tutors was awful; those guys were not that helpful. I remember seeking help when I was getting stack overflow and one of the tutors just told me to look back at my professor’s requirements (This was when I was still a beginner). That did not help me at all. When I talked to Jesus about the same problem, he actually explained what a stack overflow is, why it is happening, pinpointed me where it was occurring in my code,and provided me some helpful tips on how to combat against it before moving on to another student. Now that is tutor!

When Jesus was close to graduating from college, he approached and encouraged me to become a tutor for the computer science department.

Me: I do not know…I am concerned about giving these guys the wrong information.
Jesus: No, do not worry about that. You are good, you have my support, man!

Although I did not pursue the tutoring position, I became a lab assistant for one of my professors. I held on to that position for three years until I left college. I was really glad that I did. The best way to reinforce your understanding of a concept is to teach it. If Jesus did not encourage me to pursue tutoring, I would not have gone this far in my academics….

Jesus is a very good friend and one of the greatest mentors an underclassman can have in the CECS department. Although I am already missing his kindness and his teaching, I will never forget my friendship with him and the great conversations we had about optimizing different algorithms.

I truly wish all of Jesus’ family and friends the best in this difficult time. May your holidays be full of a good memories.

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