Personal Statement

I began college already having started my professional career in computer science. I was lucky enough to get a highschool internship through a connection, and in the field of computer science, I could probably have built a career without a college degree. The benefit of a college degree, however, is that one becomes a more well rounded person while being able to explore almost any corner of your chosen field that you wish. This is only heightened by being a part of the IU Indianapolis Honors College, an organization that emphasizes engaged learning and academic excellence.

In my short time at IU Indianapolis, I have made an effort to take the opportunities granted to me by my honors enrollment to be more engaged in my learning. For my first class about web development, I dug deep into the trenches of website development to build a professional portfolio that went far and beyond what was expected of other students in the class. Instead of only making a simplistic page, I endeavored to make a site that catches the eye of other experienced web developers, which will help me get hired in the industry. I used these same skills again for my second web development class. While we were only required to make a basic application with Javascript, I used my advanced styling skills to design a pleasing application, and I did so in a very constrained amount of time. I also took ownership of our group final project and brought it to greater heights than expected for the rest of the class. For yet another computer science class I went much further than required into the depths of an unfamiliar programming language to build a complex chess game. I then developed valuable networking skills when I was required to present said project at an undergraduate capstone event, where I was compared against other undergraduate senior capstone projects.

When it comes to my education, I have always strived to achieve excellence. While attending Marian University as a dual credit high school student, I kept a 4.0 GPA and was well-liked by all of my professors. Thus, I set even higher expectations for myself as an IU Indianapolis honors student. During my first semester of computer science, I performed well on a particularly difficult midterm exam that my grade was curved to higher than a hundred percent. In addition, I took a position of leadership within our final project group and did project management and general polishing tasks, as well as writing the general architecture of the project. I tried to emulate the senior developers at my workplace, and used my deep understanding of the course material to help the other students in my group who were newer to the field of computer science. In the area of liberal arts, while doing my public speaking class, I pushed myself far beyond my boundaries and was elected as the representative for my class in the Speech Night competition's semifinals, far surpassing what I thought I could achieve.

The main view of our final project, a calendar application