Graduate / Personal History Statement - University of California - Davis - Fall 2018 [3]

Directions: The purpose of this essay is to get know you as an individual and potential graduate student. Please describe how your personal background informs your decision to pursue a graduate degree.

Length: 4000 characters - I have already exceeded this length, however, I have already exceeded that limit. Please kindly advise on what to remove.

a talented black boy

I grew up in Nigeria, in a city called Ibadan, one of the largest cities in West Africa. My childhood was a quite interesting one because I was privileged to have my paternal grandparents around. As it is in my culture, the Yoruba culture, at night children gather under the moonlight and older folk shared proverbs, folk songs and tales. The tales were my favourite because every tale teaches a lesson. A lot of these tales revolved around the tortoise, though a slow animal, it's regarded as a very wise one in Yoruba culture. As a little boy and young man I always wanted things to happen fast, I studied fast, thought fast and did everything in a haste. I got easily frustrated when things did not work "Fast". However, over time various experiences have taught me that indeed, wisdom, planning and accuracy are more important than speed. "The Tortoise and the Hare" is a tale that emphasizes the importance of wisdom over speed, planning over speed, accuracy over speed. For this, I greatly appreciate my culture.

Growing up and studying in Nigeria was indeed a worthwhile experience for me, however, I fought many battles, overcame various challenges and crossed many hurdles. I also had opportunities that played a huge role in my decision to pursue a PhD in Computer Engineering, I would like to share a few of these.

While growing up, my Dad repaired electronic gadgets and ultrasound machines (used in hospitals). He also built live sound reinforcement systems and I was deeply fascinated by the assemblage of various parts to create systems. From observing my Dad whenever I helped him out at work, I learnt organisation, the importance of paying attention to details, responsibility, the importance of being proactive, and the importance of asking questions. This experience made me appreciate engineering and the amount of thought put into building systems. It also spurred my curiosity, so I find myself asking questions about things and systems around me, a very important trait for PhD level work. Whenever a little child walks up to me to ask questions, I take my time to answer him or her, because I believe curiosity is a very important characteristic for engineering minds. My inquisitiveness and diversity of ideas make me a good fit for UC Santa Cruz and I hope to learn about robotics so I can provide better answers to little children in Africa.

As a talented boy in pre-high school, I performed quite well (I was always top three in my class) and finished as the best student in the entire school. However, I took for granted the importance of hard work, it was not until a delay before I gained admission to the university that I realised the importance of hard work and diligence; I realised that talent is not enough to succeed in life. My talent took me through pre-high school, however by the time I got to high school, my lack of hard work and diligence was a setback, I excelled at subjects that I was naturally good at, however, I found subjects I did not have a talent for difficult. Chemistry was a subject I found really difficult through high school; it was not until my freshman year that I decided to work hard at chemistry. My hard work paid off, I topped my class in the chemistry courses and I learnt the importance of hard work. I went on to apply this attitude to all other courses and activities and I got better results. Through this experience, I learnt hard work and diligence, two very important characteristics for graduate school work.

My entire childhood was not all serious, I had lots of fun as well. As a little boy, I loved to observe animals and their social behaviour especially ants, spiders and bugs. My love for animals was greatly influenced by their abundance in our house; my Dad raised different animals and pets: Dogs, Cats, Rabbits, Canaries, Pigs etc. I also played lots of games and this was one of my motivation in addition to my early exposure to engineering for applying to study computer science and mathematics as an undergraduate. This early experience with animals influenced my decision to pursue research in swarm robotics.

As a freshman during my undergraduate program, I taught myself to program realising that it allowed me to solve problems. Most of the programs I wrote then were games such as guessing game and hangman. As I learnt to program, I saw the importance of communities and the role they play in career growth. This motivated me to join IEEE and Google Developer Groups (GDG) during my undergraduate program. I got onboard a mentorship program put together by Africans in the diaspora to give opportunities and exposure to Africans interested in engineering. I also got involved in competitive programming, leading my team to the first position in the country at IEEEXtreme 7.0 and making it to the top 15% in the world. In addition, I represented my university as well as Africa at the GITEX Week 2014 Students Lab, this experience alongside my other opportunities played a key role in my pursuit of advanced education.

In 2017, I was privileged to meet a Lead Researcher at HERE Technologies who is Yoruba, Nigerian and African, he enlightened me on the need for advanced engineering research and how it can serve as a catalyst for growth and development in Africa. Through these experiences, I was inspired to leverage my knowledge to constantly contribute to the tech ecosystem in Africa because I understand how technology would have an exponential effect on a continent that has never had its potential realized. So mentorship is one of my core values and I hope to continue to inspire many other Africans to be their best and pursue their dreams as I was inspired.

I have always had the desire to pursue a PhD, though as a personal accomplishment rather than the need to push the boundaries of knowledge. However, based on the various experiences I have had, coupled with my desire to create new knowledge and my motivation to leverage the social behaviours of animals to build intelligent systems that would revolutionize the world, I have decided to apply for a PhD in Computer Engineering. Nigeria is the most populous black nation on earth, however, there are only 203 Researchers per million inhabitants. I hope to increase this number by becoming an authority that would inspire other Nigerians to pursue research, leveraging our natural systems with our advances and making sure no one is left behind because technology is something to uplift everyone.

Finally, I am a black boy with Yoruba cultural background. My cultural heritage is very rich with elements such as language, music, proverbs, folk songs and folktales; and we are always enthusiastic about sharing information about them with people. I am also willing to interact and learn from people culture's as well while still sharing mine. Learning about other cultures makes life more interesting.