Berns Bryan ECE 350-1 Autobiography 1,240 Words January 26, 2004 Bryan In A Nutshell I was born on April 8, 1982, and was the first of two sons to James and Margaret Berns. Infancy to adulthood was spent in a little town in northeastern Wisconsin, called DePere. DePere was just large enough to be a city but small enough that when someone asked where you were from, youd simply say Green Bay, which borders the city on the north side. I attended St. Joseph catholic elementary school which shared a property line with my first house. Socially, the first twelve years of my life were very fractured. Six best friends had come and gone in that time, usually due to their families moving away for occupational demands. Fortunately, this lack of definitive friendships in my youth helped me later in life when I was required to emotionally move on. After moving three blocks to our second house, my younger brother Erik was born. These were two big changes for an eight-year-old. Our new backyard was a hay field, a railroad track, and a forest. Theres not too much more a boy could ask for! Every free moment was spent outside cutting down trees to make a fort, defacing currency with the help of trains, or running around endlessly in the open plain. These are the times of my life I look back to most fondly. In middle school, I was a straight-A student and an extreme perfectionist. Math competitions, spelling bees, trivia contents -- nothing offered too much of a challenge. Extracurricular activities included mostly sports, although I wasnt as much of a tyrant
when it came to soccer, basketball, and track. Ironically, by the time I graduated from of St. Joseph, all its religious doctrines had escaped me. Being a young atheist did not make things easy on my parents, who come from very traditional families. We fought almost every other night about why do I think this way and how this wasnt how I was raised. Even today these topics still seem to creep into conversation, but luckily the arguments are a sliver more civilized than screaming at the top of our lungs. Since such ideas werent too accepted in my community, I put my scarlet letter away when I left the house for school. Public high school at West DePere High was a blessing. Many of my first months of high school were spent sitting back, relaxing in the gifted and talented room, where they sent the students whom where ahead of the class. Here I met my first long-time friend, Curt Hockers. My first conversion with Curt was an argument over who was the better, smarter math student. Unfortunately it turned out to be him, as later MegaMath competitions would confirm. Nevertheless, we soon realized that our cocky, egotistical personalities were just the right thing for each other. It was this machismo which implored me to find a job I thought was worth my time. I emailed the Vice President of Operations at ShopKo Stores and explained to him how I would be honored to work on the computer staff at their Green Bay headquarters. Later that month at Perkins, I had lunch with him and the man who would eventually become my supervisor. Nearing the end of the meal they asked when I would like the start. That one, short email changed my life.
I worked at ShopKo everyday for three hours after school. I was a fifteen year old making eleven dollars an hours; I couldnt have been more proud of myself. One of the most important assets I gained was that of networking, which helped when it came time to find a job during college. In September of 2000, I left DePere and a fulltime offer at ShopKo to attend school at the University of Wisconsin I Madison. chose Madison solely because it was the most prestigious college I could afford. (With no financial help from my middleupper class parents, it was difficult to find low-interest loans). I had a good start to college on paper, graduating high school with 23 college-equivalent credits. However, my ambitious teenage lifestyle did not follow through to the first few semesters of colleges. The lack of push impelled me into probation. It took nearly a year to recover from my academic downfall. One of the key players was getting a job. A good friend I had at ShopKo set me up for an interview with Jim Drews, a network administrator at the Computer Aided Engineering department. I fit right in since C.A.E. was almost a mirror of ShopKo, as far as technology products go. At ShopKo, I often found my recommendations to be implemented, but never respected or acknowledged due to my age. C.A.E. offered me a voice and allowed me to see how my actions directly influenced the college. Ironically, the solution to my poor grades was more stress. I found the more hours worked and the classes taken, the better I performed scholastically. This discovery lead to an eventual acceptance into the College of Engineering as an electrical engineer.
The original ambitions were towards a computer engineering major, but shortly before my application was submitted, the college decided to increase requirements. Another year went by, and academic statistics slowly increased. The beginning of junior year I decided to declare a double major in computer science. When I found electrical engineering offered too little hands-on curricula, computer science compensated with a detailed, involved project. That following winter I began to specialize in electromagnetic fields and waves. Even though I considered the material to be interesting, this decision would later prove to be poor as many employers are more likely to require knowledge of power and control systems. I am entering into my final semester and will graduate with a two majors in four years. I currently am searching for a job in computer science or electrical engineering.
Where ECE 350 Fits I...