PRESTIGE OR CASH? Computerworld magazine polled 3,000...

PRESTIGE OR CASH? Computerworld magazine polled 3,000 corporate recruiters and business school deans to determine who has the best technological MBA programs in the country. UC Irvine made the list--at 23rd. But there was a second category that might appeal more to students interested in the program: It jumped up to ninth for average starting pay for graduates--$50,600. . . . Tops in both, of course: MIT in Massachusetts, starting pay averages $89,000.

CHEER BOWL: Freshmen are the lower class? At Dana Hills High School, the freshmen cheerleaders pulled a near-perfect routine to win first place in a regional competition for Cheerleaders of America--which sends them to the national finals in Jacksonville, Fla., in March. . . . Their coach, Tammie Wingen, credits the 15-member squad’s hard work--12 hours of practice each week. “Nobody’s ever seen anything like this from a freshman squad,” Wingen says. “I can’t even imagine what they’ll do as varsity.”

LOOK AT US: Laid off from her loan processing job, Tam Nguyen knew what she really wanted to do: open her own restaurant. After seven months, her Vietnamese Beef Noodles on Brookhurst Street in Westminster has thrived. But Nguyen, 27, wants to see more non-Vietnamese customers. . . . That’s one reason she was part of kickoff activities Monday for the weeklong Vietnamese American Business Expo. “Vietnamese food is more healthy than Chinese,” she chuckles. “Less oil and fat. Our community just needs to say to Orange County: ‘Hey, we’re here.’ ”

PROBLEM MAN: Short story writer Jay Gummerman of San Clemente has written his first novel, “Chez Chance,” about a recently paralyzed young man who rethinks his life from a motel room near Disneyland (E1). . . . Gummerman prefers such problem characters: “I try to work through something that I don’t have a grasp on, so in the writing, I resolve something in me and resolve something for the reader.”