Professional Statement

Greetings! My name is Derrick Griffin. I am currently a senior at Winston-Salem State University majoring in Computer Science with a minor in Mathematics. Upon graduating from Winston-Salem State University, I plan to further my education by obtaining a Master's degree and aquire a PhD. By acquiring these degrees and participating in internships, I hope to attain a career in the computer industry and develop new technologies that will help people around the world.

I have chosen to major in Computer Science and minor in Mathematics because this course of action will allow me to follow my dream of developing new technologies for computer security. Also I want to develop computer applications that will make using computers more simple. This area of study has always been my dream to work with since I began school. With the advancement and usefulness that computers have on the world I hope to make an impact with them.

During the 2008-2009 academic school year, I took part in the design and development of artificial intelligence robotics under the guidance of Dr. Caldwell at Winston-Salem State University. Our team constructed the robots and also and programmed the robots to follow different light patterns and shape structures to guide their movements in a specified area. We also used C++ to help with the guidance of the robots and with a little hardware knowledge constructed them. I specifically contributed to the team project by creating the program coding of the robots to make them move in a square, triangle, and figure eight pattern.Through this project we learned that artificial intelligent robots could be used to perform simple tasks for a person. We presented our research and demonstrated our robots to the Science Department to show that robots can be useful in a home environment.

I am participating in the Elizabeth City State University Undergraduate Research Experience in Ocean, Marine, and Polar Science. I am assigned to the Ocean Optics team, mentored by Dr. Leonid Sokoletsky. I will spend eight weeks conducting research and at the end I will give presentation of our research and document it on a website which our team created. This internship will help me gain professional experience and teach me how to document my research. I have also learned how to use Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Dreamweaver, and Linux Ubuntu operating system.

Once I graduate from Winston-Salem State University, I hope to come back and help mentor students in the computer science field. I hope to pass on helpful information and skills to help other students do well in the computer science field. I believe it is important to help students that will be in the same profession area I am in, and tell them that more African Americans can get involved in the computer science field.