azich.org

Born and raised in Chicago, IL, Andrew Zich is currently a full-time student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and works part-time for the University of Chicago's Computation Institute. Andrew worked part time at the Computation Institute for the summers of 2008, 2009, and 2010 and has now been hired part time for the 2010 school year. Andrew began his first paid job as a Support Associate in the summer of 2006 at the University of Chicago Laboratory School's Information Systems Department, a position he held until the summer of 2009.

During my freshman year at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, I took the Advanced Placement Computer Science class with four seniors and two juniors. They nicknamed me "prodigy" because of my proficiency with the subject matter. I prefixed it with the four-letter acronym of the school ("UCLS") and it became one of my most-used online handles.

During my early years of middle school, I discovered IRC (Internet Relay Chat) and found myself in the MacNN channel of the Hashmark IRC network. Forced to create a nickname for the service and being the more sinister of a pair of teenage twins, I chose the nickname Eviltwin. MacNN proved to be a great resource for my more advanced Mac knowledge at the time and helped shape me into the strong Apple fan I am today.

From a very young age, I was interested in science. I would frequently ask how or why things worked and proceed to drive my parents and teachers insane with questions. For a while I was interested in nuclear power and how it worked. I checked out the book "Chernobyl" from my elementary school's library more times than all those before me put together ever had. When my family got AOL so our Macintosh Performa could connect to the internet, we all chose email addresses. Because I was fascinated by nuclear power, I decided I wanted my email address to have to do with it. My parents suggested "nukezich" which has been my AIM screen name ever since. For Christmas one year, I received a framed photograph of a cooling tower from a nuclear power plant from my parents. It still hangs on my wall in my bedroom.