Computer Science Personal Statement
Twenty years after the arrival of the world wide web, computers and IT have become an essential component of virtually every aspect of our lives, whether it is the GPS that tells us where to go, the smartphone that keeps us up-to-date, the social network that connects us with friends or the e-reader that allows us access to the world’s libraries from our living room. The computer has come a long way from its rudimentary beginnings in the Nineteenth Century when Charles Babbage devised his Difference Engine. I have enjoyed working with computers and trying to figure out how they work since I can remember. I wish to study Computer Science to gain a broader, fuller understanding of computers’ workings so that I may later contribute myself to this ongoing technological revolution. With this aim in mind, I am studying for a BTEC in ICT at college, study which has only strengthened my interest in the field and my desire to pursue a career in computing or IT. During my study, I have learned how to upgrade my computer using BIOS, a code that enables the operating system to load and start. This has given me experience of coding, which will be advantageous when I come to learn programming languages as part of my degree. I have also become a skilled user of software packages that enable you to manipulate digital graphics. From the BTEC, but also from my other studies over the years, I have become practised in designing websites for courses and projects. Complex web design applications, such as Macromedia Flash and DreamWeaver, will hold no fear for me, when I shall meet them in my degree. I have used them in my creation of websites, as well as using CSS, to control the layout and style of sites, and Adobe Fireworks, with which I relish working given the striking banners that it allows you to add.
Outside of school, I regularly keep myself up-to-date on the latest developments in computing and IT through reading science and technology magazines. From my reading, I have learned that there are more speculative, science fiction-like areas of Computer Science, such as Artificial Intelligence, in which computer scientists attempt to build machines that will be able to pass the Turing Test and/or pass as human beings, and Quantum Computing, which holds out the prospect of the creation of even faster and even smaller computers than are currently envisaged by practising computer manufacturers. The reading has given me a notion of the breadth of Computer Science and studying the subject at degree level will allow me to decide on which area I shall wish to concentrate when I graduate and become a qualified computer scientist or web designer or software developer.
When I’m not reading about gadgets and computers, I am often constructing and dismantling them in order to figure out their workings. This has enhanced my practical know-how and my problem-solving skills, something that will stand me in good stead when I come to master programming languages and formal logic at degree level. I am also an avid video game player and in my degree I would like to learn how such entertaining and complicated games are created. Technology is not my only love: I am a keen sports fan and I regularly play football and basketball with friends. I hope to continue playing at competitive level when I enter university. With my web design skills, I should also like to help create and maintain the websites of any university sports teams or societies I may join.
As well as gaining the requisite knowledge and skills to enter the world of computing, I hope I shall meet like-minded people at university with whom I can collaborate on ground-breaking computing projects, just as Mark Zuckerberg did when he founded Facebook at Harvard. Facebook has revolutionised our social lives. I hope that a degree in Computer Science will equip me so that I may contribute to making a similar, tangible effect on people’s lives.