Post TAMS & Enter WPI

An abbreviated personal description: I skipped the trauma of Junior and Senior years of high school when I was accepted to the Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science (TAMS) at the University of North Texas (UNT). Every year, TAMS admits 200 high school students after their sophomore year, and enrolls them in UNT's courses. "Tamsters" earn their high school diplomas after 2 years and atleast 60 credit hours of a well rounded foundation of English, History, Math, Biology, Chemistry and Physics, and then they transfer to other schools as Sophomores and Juniors. Call (800)241-TAMS for more info, Well, I earned 70 credit hours and finished math up through Ordinary Differential Equations. Now I am the first Tamster to enter Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Within 2 to 2.5 years, I plan to graduate with a B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering with extensive background in Computer Science. (I plan an "academic takeover" of WPI's CS department by only taking their senior level courses with out any lower levels on my transcript. hehe)

Anyways, I consider my self fairly proficient with computers. (programming since the 4th grade) I won't claim to know everything, but I learn and apply new concepts quickly. I've always had a fascination with how things work, especially anything electrical. I plan to atleast get a master's degree, but I'm not sure what I'd like to do after that. I'm fairly certain I don't want to sit in a windowless cubicle writing software. I want to design hardware and write the software for my devices as well. I'd love to go into robotics, or a derivative of digital communications like networks and radio communications. Personally, the ideas of high speed communications and remote control excite me, so I've been stocking piling courses in microprocessors, radio communication and microelectronics at WPI's awesome Electrical & Computer Engineering Department.

9/2/2001: WPI - Round 2!

What do I say after not updating this specific page in 3-4 years? No idea, but I'll start dating the entries. ;)

I finally finished my undergraduate degree this May. Stats: 2 years at TAMS + 4 years at WPI = 6 years = 2 years too many! That's okay I guess. I had a lot of fun being the "Computer Systems Administrator" (and recently promoted to "Computational Facilities Manager") for "WPI's awesome Electrical & Computer Engineering Department." That was a very interesting experience, but I had to quit when I realized how the stress (interacting with another department...) was corroding me inside-out. I think I "got out in time", and I hope I left a positive mark to last a few years.

Now, I'm starting my graduate studies, and this time, we'll see if I can get the degree in the "proper" two year time. When I first decided to leave my job, I thought about "going off to industry" to really earn a few bucks and make my family proud in at least the capitalistic sense. But being around school for so long... you hear things like "I wish I stayed in for my master's; it is tough making time and readjusting to academics after having a full time job and family." Looking around, and at myself, I don't think I'm ready for the "Real World", yet. Or at least, if I enter that foreign landscape with either a master's degree, or Ph.D./Sc.D. appended to my name, then I'll be ready. Maybe its just WPI, but too often, I notice how "professinoal people" just ignore you, but when another person suggests the same things, and thay're a "Doctor of Something or Other," instantly the response is "My, what a fundamentally cool idea!" Well, so its not really that extreme, but there's the point. - I don't think I'm ready until I have a few "Aces up my sleeve" and a new coat of lacquer. (general theory: do first impressions & "image" really affect the masses?)

So now, I'm a "Research Associate" for Prof. Cyganski working on satellite bandwidth provisioning. I have no idea how a thesis is supposed to work out, and I'm a little afraid of all those "my thesis ate my sanity" horror stories. But for now, we've scheduled to be done with my thesis in the first year; then I just take more classes in the second year. I like this strategy instead of doing thesis in the second year when it could possibly interfere with your graduation date. ;)

Also, in my flury of indecision this spring to either join the work force or go back to school, I'm no longer Vice-President of WPI's IEEE Student Branch, but instead I'm

President of Eta Kappa Nu - the Electrical & Computer Engineering honor society
Secretary of WPI's Graduate Student Organization
Extra class Amatuer Radio operator - AD5EY
New member of Mensa