Keep UTD Nerdy

Transcript

You all are gonna love this next segment, Willie, a computer science senior thinks of UTD as more than a university. For him, it’s a place where he has been able to meet and connect with peers like never before. All while pursuing one of his passions, helping other students. Meeting people across disciplines with the same interests was the spark he needed. All right, let’s hear it, Willie.

– Thanks for having me, Alex. Hi, everyone. In high school, I always felt like the odd one out. As someone whose parents never had a residential college experience, I didn’t know what to expect. But at UTD I managed to find a sense of belonging and build my own community. When others talk about UTD, maybe they’ll talk about how well ranked our computer science program is or the fact that our mascot is literally a comet from outer space. But when I think of this place, I think of the nerds. My story starts in summer 2019 when I was accepted into the Clark Summer Research Program, a mentored research experience for incoming freshmen. For the first time in a long time, I found people as nerdy and as quirky and as curious as I was, and soon my freshman year, I was doing research in a lab on campus and getting more involved in clubs than I ever have been in high school. The friends I met that summer encouraged me to stay involved, and soon I was an officer for one of the largest CS organizations on campus. And later I founded my own student group, Nebula Labs dedicated to building software for other students. In doing that, I was able to learn just how interdisciplinary UTD was. My friends, they’re not just CS majors, they’re psychology majors, public policy majors, arts majors, and the thing that unites us all is the fact that we work hard, but we also play hard. If I’ve learned anything about this place, it’s that although we sometimes laugh at our mascot being a comet, we’re not afraid to shoot for the stars. I love this campus because I’ve been able to shape its destiny as much as it’s been able to shape my own worldview and my own intellectual curiosity. Back to you, Alex.

– Willie, nerds everywhere are cheering right now. It’s awesome that you’ve accomplished so much as a Comet and that you’re shooting for the stars. Sounds like a good plan to me. You clearly found the perfect college home at UTD. Thanks, Willie.