Calvin Mwesigwa- Purdue University School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Degree Objective :BSCmpE
Coming into the Purdue Computer Engineering program I was green as a thistle about computer hardware, software, and the art of programming. The only things that motivated me to join were my love for computers and my curiosity to find out what it would be like to partake in one of the best computer engineering programs in the world. As the saying goes curiosity killed the cat, but cats also have nine lives. I am happy to say that I am almost three quarters of the way done with the program, which has undoubtedly prepared me to handle the challenges of being an entry-level engineer.
Throughout my studies at Purdue I have picked up invaluable skills and techniques used by engineers to solve real world problems. Right off the bat I was thrown into very challenging classes that tested and sharpened my abilities to conjur and critique ideas on how to solve engineering problems. In my freshman year I was given the opportunity to design solutions for community problems through a program called Engineering Projects in Community Servive(EPICS). This was a pretty challenging program because as a freshman we were taught to work in teams with upperclassmen to build products which impacted society even though we did not completely understand all aspects of the design. This drilled in the concept of teamwork and working in groups with people who had different educational backgrounds and skills.
In my sophomore year, I signed up to become a Teaching Assistant for the "Introduction to Purdue Engineering" course. This course is targeted towards introducing and mentoring freshmen into the Purdue School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. As a teaching assistant, I was tasked with preparing materials for lectures, grading students' homework, and most of all serving as a role model to all my students. This experience helped improve my communication and organization skills and also helped me learn how to handle serious responsibility. Being a teaching assistant also taught me to balance my time so that I could successfully toggle and complete all of the numerous assignments I had on my plate.
During the summer of my sophomore year, I signed up for the Purdue Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship(SURF). I was assigned to work under the Purdue Network for Computational Nanotechnology with Proffessor Ashlie Martini on a project that involved creating a cybertool to simulate atomic friction. I was the lead software developer on the team and it was my responsibility to write all of the codes for the simulation tool. This task involved working closely with the professor and a graduate mentor so that I could fully understand the knowledge and concepts that were important to meet the successful criteria for the tool. Also, I learned the concepts of meeting deadlines since this was a very time critical project as we only had about three months to complete it. I also had to exercise the ability to work under minimum supervision. Since I was the lead software developer I had to make most of the design decisions and produce a final product that met all of the initial expectations and specifications of the rest of the team. I also had to learn about four new programming languages for this project which added to my overall skills as a computer engineer.
But not all of my abilities have been directly imparted by taking classes or doing projects in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. I also have a part time job with Purdue ResNet where I am employed as a Residential Computer Consultant and a software developer. Part of my job description is to work closely with other student developers to build a system that automatically monitors and handles issues on the Purdue Residential Network. This out of class project has helped sharpen my software development and programming skills in languages such as PHP, jQuery, javascript, ajax, and mySQL. My job has also helped me learn how to work as a small cog in a big wheel as some would say.
All in all, my Purdue education has prepared me with valuable skills and readied me to enter the workforce as an entry level engineer. Through the challenges and wide variety of lessons that I have learned, I believe that I will be a vital asset to your company.
Back to ECE400 Spring 2012 Student Professional Statements
