u pitt personal statement

When I was a little girl, about 5 years old, my father brought home a Nintendo Entertainment System—back then they cost $199. I remember when I first fumbled with the RF switch and AC adapter. Somehow, these cable connections allowed this machine to project itself from the cathode-ray-tube that sat in my living room, and through a sequence of buttons, I could immerse myself into another world, adventures and adversity that my imagination was not yet sophisticated enough to construct on its own.

Even at that age, dialects were not my only medium of communication. On top of juggling the languages of two cultures, I began studying an additional means of expression—music. The cognition of language and the pedagogy of semantics were copious in my early childhood, and although it seemed to be thoughtless leisure at the time, the 8-bit processor that ran in my living room began training me to understand the digital interaction with my analogue precision from my 7-pin controller. Through a meager collection of capacitors and resistors, my childhood pastime allowed me to see the world in ways that real life restricted, not that my actions did not yield consequences, but that I could always go back and discover the correct way of doing things.

As a Science and Engineering Scholar, summer 2003, through the UD College of Computer Engineering, I worked in a team of programmers on a Mobil Ad Hoc Networking simulator for Military operations. This was a project lead by Dr. Stephan Bohacek, and specifically, I was given the role of researching military operations, working with OpenGL to efficiently create a way of producing urban areas, and helping to determine a conventional way for nodes to mobilize in such an environment. The Internet has introduced an ever-increasing amount of information to the fingertips of millions, although confined to the limits of wired communication. Long overdue, the next stage of this information, communication, and computation explosion will inevitably come with the deployment of Mobile ad hoc Networking—MANETs, impacting on every apparent aspect of life. It was the central goal of this work to advance the performance of such wireless networks.

For the first time in my undergraduate studies, I was challenged to apply my acquired knowledge in computers towards solving a much bigger problem. Significantly, it showed me a new level of motivation when taking on a project of my own, while having to cooperate with a team of more experienced researchers. The amount of mentoring I received as a Science and Engineering Scholar was priceless.

This encouraged me to aspire towards a graduate degree, leading me to the McNair Scholar Achievement Program. Through the structure of the McNair Program, I took on a more independent study with Professor Richard Hanley, of the Philosophy department. I submitted my proposal on “The aesthetics of Jazz” for the following summer, and although it seemed to be no more than a breadth experience to investigate my stretch of interests, as the project itself was revealed to me, I began to realize the tie between these two passions. I looked at Jazz through the eyes of a philosopher and collected the opinions from Jazz critics of all trades. This has led me to conclude that Jazz, more than mere music, is a language of its own culture. My infatuation with Jazz is not that different from Computer Science. Jazz is a language of emotions, and similarly, Computer Science is the study of communicating logic—both are mediums for expression.

After these intense attempts of exploration, there’s so much more I want to investigate. In particular, I am interested in Dr. Michael Lewis’s work with Controlling Robot/Agent/ Human teams for Urban Search & Rescue. The virtual test domains, especially, will provide opportunities for me to understand Artificial Intelligence and its ties to Humans and Technology.

Now, at the end of my 3rd year in college, I find myself just beginning to scratch the surface of the artificial intelligence anomaly, including my childhood infatuation with it. I don’t really know any better than the next person on whether or not the world needs to be changed, but I don’t believe that things have to be the way they are. There is much for me to contribute to the world around me, and I know that graduate school will bring me closer to finding out the kind of person who I am meant to become, with AI as my medium for inducing progress.