"Frank" Eddy: Last To Graduate

Attending Weber State College back in the mid 80’s, I was originally studying pre-engineering with the expectation of transferring to USU or Sacramento State to get a degree in Mechanical engineering.  But I could not resist the C, FORTRAN, COBOL and Assembler computer programming classes.  But as life happens, events caused me to ungracefully drop out.

Obviously the PC revolution was well underway at that time, and I found myself working in industry making a good living.  So why did I come back to school?  I have two reasons.

 As a young man my grandfather David Herrera (on my mother’s side) ran away from home at the age of 13 to attend school.  It was his dream that he and all of his children and grandchildren receive college degrees.  To date, I am the only one who does not have a degree including those great grandchildren old enough to attend the university!  This spring I will honor his dream, and for me graduating from the same school my mother did, only sweetens the experience.

 The second reason for returning (the fun reason) is the desire to refresh and enhance my skills.  To that end, I cannot overstate how much better the learning experience has been.  The amount of knowledge I’ve gained far exceeded my expectations.

Reflecting on the Computer Science Department, I cannot be more proud to say that I will be a graduate of WSU.  And based on my experience in industry, those graduating from WSU with a BS in CS that have a real passion for what they do, are the best educated CS students in the state.
 Finally, I firmly believe (with a recognized bias) that CS is one of the most important disciplines being taught as WSU.  To quote David Chappell (not the comedian), an expert in software Application Lifecycle Management:
“Innovators in an era’s defining technology are the people who create the future, and that technology changes.  In 1800 it was steam power. In 1880 it was electricity.  In 1920 it was the internal combustion engine. Today it is manifestly clear that the defining technology of our era is software. And what that means is that all of us who work in software, all of us, actually work in the most important profession in the world. We make the world a better place every day by writing more code that does more useful things that makes every buddy’s life better."
Click Here to see the video of Frank's experience at WSU

Written By Melina Padilla