Meet Jesse Richmond! He’s a second-year Master’s student from Mount Pleasant, Utah emphasizing in electrical engineering. He works under Dr. Willie Harrison in joint source-channel coding research, looking at how to compress data and then protect it from transmission errors in one step. This well-rounded gentleman also helped BYU sweep the short story contest earlier this semester! He placed as a runner up in the short fiction category for a quirky, humorous story he wrote titled “Solomon’s Lines.” Take it away, Jesse!
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I did my undergraduate degree in physics, but didn’t want to continue in that direction for my Master’s degree. I went into electrical engineering because… it seemed like electrical engineering offered some interesting research areas that I wanted to pursue.
Some of the biggest challenges I’ve faced during my college journey were… for both my undergraduate and graduate degrees, I majored in something that I had no direct background experience in. It has required a lot of extra reading and study to catch up.
My passion is… Writing! And reading.
ENGL 321R ...is my favorite class I’ve taken at BYU. As many semesters as I could fit in, I took ENGL 321R, which is the English Department’s reading series. You go to the library every week, listen to a visiting writer share their work, and then have cookies afterward (or, at least, this was how the class went pre-COVID). It’s a great class!
My advice to incoming freshmen would be… to take classes outside of your major! There’s lots to discover and love.
My favorite BYU hack is… not so much a hack as it is a notice that the BYU Store regularly stocks Tillamook cheddar cheese squares for $0.49 and they make great snacks.
One thing I always have with me is… Feynman (a graphic novel biography of the scientist Richard Feynman). At some point I put it in my backpack to read, but then I never took it out; it goes wherever I go.
My favorite TV show is… currently, Scrubs. Of all time… probably Avatar: The Last Airbender.
For a long time, a personal pepperoni pizza from Freschetta ...was my go-to eat at the Cougareat. Was it the best pizza? Probably not, but I was really nostalgic for it because I used to eat it when I came to BYU for summer camps or other events. Now, my go-to eat is just your basic Chick-Fil-A sandwich.
My favorite place in Provo is… anywhere up Provo Canyon; I love to go longboarding down the Provo River trail. The scenery never fails to impress.