My name is Paula Rene Harrell and
I am a junior at Elizabeth City State University in Elizabeth City, North
Carolina. My major is Computer Science with a minor in Aviation Science. My objective
is to work in an environment that will allow me to excel in both Computer and Aviation Science.
My first internship was with in the ONR program. I was on the System Administration Team (2000-2001). Dr. Linda Hayden was the Principal Investigator and Dr. Pendharder was the mentor. The purpose of our research was to do an in depth study on the potential of programs to secure a system against outside attacks and virus spreading software. We also rebuilt an Indigo 2 from spare parts and created log on accounts. Our main objective was to achieve an understanding of System Administration on the UNIX platform across different types of environment.
"Compression and Denoising of Astronomical Images Using Wavelets" was the title of my second internship. This internship was part of the Undergraduate Research Institution in Astrophysics (URIA) program as South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, South Carolina. The purpose was to rid noise due to the intrinsic quality of the charge-coupled devices (CDDs) along with the bias and other image contaminants. We also had to compress wavelets using software called FAWAV. I participated in this eight week internship during the summmer of 2001.
During my sophomore year at Elizabeth City State University, I had to the opportunity to participate on another research team. I was on the Networking Team. The Principal Investigator was Dr. Linda Hayden. Our mentors were Chris Edwards, Kuchumbi Hayden, and Ernest Walker. "The Implementation of Point-to-Point Infrared Local Area Network (LAN)" was the title of the research project. The purpose was to allow information to be transmitted from one point to another without relying on any physical connection between computers. This project involves removal of existing cabled Ethernet PCI card from the Power Macintosh G3 PCI slot and replace it with the wireless SkyLine PCI card.
During the summer of 2003, I participated in an internship at Jackson State University and Elizabeth City State University. The first five weeks was at JSU and the last three weeks at ECSU. At JSU, I participated in a Fishery Stock Assessment Workshop. This workshop invovled an extensive use of Microsoft Excel to formulate models utilizing the Ricker, Schaefer, and von Bertalanffy equations. It also involved the use of Calculus I and Probability and Statistics.
For the last three weeks at ECSU, I participated in the Undergraduate Research Experience in Ocean and Marine Science. The objective was to promote the professional development of minority undergraduate students through their participation in ocean and marine science research. We also documented the installation of the TeraScan hardware and software in Dixon Hall, which is located on the campus of ECSU. TeraScan is an integrated system of hardware and software, which is designed to automatically capture data from meteorological and environmental satellite and process the data into image and overlay products.
I believe participating in any type of internship is very important and meaningful. Internships give you the opportunity to learn more about a particular field of study. It will also give the chance to earn extra money and allow you to travel to places that you never would have had the chance to go. While participating in the internships, you are given the opportunity to meet different people. Some of these people if given the chance can help you in the future.
Upon graduation from Elizabeth
City State University with a bachelor's degree in Computer Science, I will
attend graduate school to obtain a master's degree in Computer Science.
Afterwards, I would like to pursue a Ph.D. in Computer Science. After receiving
my degrees, I plan to work for a leading technology firm.