Ethan Lam

Ethan Lam

Name:
Ethan Lam, BS IEOR ‘25, minor in EECS

Post-Graduation Plans:
Founder at FiveW

Advice to current and future IEOR students:
“Berkeley is a huge campus: take advantage of it. Try different types of clubs. Get rejected. Go to hackathons even if you don’t know anyone. Email that professor and ask about research. Four years is a long time, and it’s never too late to try something new. The worst thing you can do is stay inside and miss out on everything Berkeley has to offer. At the same time, give yourself grace. It’s okay to not have it all figured out. Don’t feel pressured to follow a traditional path or do what your peers are doing. Take the time to figure out what you actually want. It will work out.”

What does IEOR mean to you?
“To me, IEOR is a way of thinking. It’s about making sense of complexity and asking insightful questions, what are the constraints, what are the tradeoffs, what are we actually trying to optimize. At Berkeley, the IEOR program gave me the space to learn from smart peers and solve real-world problems. It also gave me the IISE community, where I found support and lifelong friendships.”