LQ
Hometown:  I was born in New Orleans, LA but I currently live in Palmyra, WI.
Academic level:  Transfer Junior.   
When will you graduate? May ’10 (hopefully).

Favorite MCS Course? I really do enjoy every aspect of the MCS major but I suppose I enjoy the programming courses the best. I think they offer the best opportunity for the sort of critical thinking and problem solving that I enjoy.

Advise to potential MCS Students? Go beyond what is taught in class. Use your professors for every bit of the knowledge that they have. Take advantage of their office hours. Get involved in research and other extracurricular activities. Apply for scholarships. I cannot stress this one enough. There is a lot of free money out there that goes unclaimed simply because no one has applied for it. Make school work for you and get involved. You are paying a lot of money to be here and you need something more than just a diploma to stick out in the workforce today.

What other projects/interests/research do you have on campus? I am currently involved in a research project with two other students and Professor Hien Nguyen of the Math and Computer Science Department, in collaboration with Dartmouth College and Virginia Tech. Our goal is to create a set of tools for business analysts that will help streamline the process of business analysis. We intend to make them more effective at this task by creating and implementing a user model based on their analytical tasks and using this model for comparison against other business analysts.

What do you like to do in your free time? I love to play guitar and write music. I am an avid reader and writer. I enjoy hiking, camping and other outdoor activities, though I can never seem to find enough time for them. I love playing with my son and I cannot wait until he is old enough to start running around with me.

Would you do anything differently if you were to start your college career over? I would have started earlier. I got off to a very late start but I feel like in many ways it has helped to shape my academic career for the better.

What are your plans after graduation?  I plan to work for a while to pay off some student loans and to save money for graduate school. I actually hope to attend graduate school for Philosophy/Religious Studies, as a great deal of my previous course work is in this field. I do not think I will ever be done going to school. There is just too much out there to learn.

Anything you would say to your professors…comments, advice, etc.? I think the professors here do a great job of making themselves available for questions and help. I would urge the students to take full advantage of this. One thing I would suggest to professors is to somehow try to make the projects and homework matter to the student, especially in the MCS field of study. If you make it personal for them it really does have a way of making more of an impact, in my opinion.

Reason for going into IT? I love computers. I love the logic of them. I find the problem solving and critical thinking needed for this field suits my nature well. I find it very satisfying to solve a difficult problem and working with computers always allows for difficult problems.

Anything else you think might be interesting to tell about you, the MCS degree, IT field or experiences you have had while in college? Well….. an interesting fact about me is that, the school I went to before this was a private Buddhist University in Boulder,CO. I had the pleasure of learning Buddhism first hand from Buddhist monks and world renowned Buddhist scholars. It was an amazing experience that really shaped my life.