Dave Crist

David A. Crist was nominated by Dr. Sridhar Narayan, a professor in the computer science department, who said “I would like to nominate Dave Crist, a Computer Science major, as the non-trad student of the month. Dave deserves this honor for a simple reason - he serves as an inspiration to other students, especially the younger, more traditional ones. He has been my student in several classes and has consistently enhanced the classroom experience for everyone by his energy, his eagerness to learn, his pleasant demeanor, and especially by his performance on class projects. On more than one occasion, I have seen other students, especially the ones who might normally be content to do just enough to get by, put in extra effort in order to make their project comparable to Dave's. I especially recall a project in which the students had to write software for an mp3 player. Dave's mp3 player looked almost professional and had so many sophisticated touches that some of the other students asked for an extension so that they could enhance their own software using some of Dave's ideas! Dave recently received an undergraduate research award from UNCW for his proposal to develop a spoken-language translation tool. Dave also deserves recognition for his role as an unofficial non-trad mentor to many trad students.”

Dave is a 35 year old computer science major math minor who will graduate in December 2005. He works to support himself and his black lab, Samantha. He has received the UNCW Bookstore Scholarship and was awarded the Apple Computer Developer’s Conference Scholarship twice. He is a member of Mensa, an international group whose purpose is to foster human intelligence, encourage research in the nature, characteristics and uses of intelligence, and to promote stimulating intellectual and social opportunities for its members, and Upsilon Pi Epsilon Honor Society for the Computing and Information Disciplines. Dave also received an undergraduate research fellowship involving work in machine language translation. He was selected as one of 100 UNC-System students to present their research before North Carolina legislators though the 'Research In The Capitol’ Undergraduate Research Symposium. Dave has also been on the Dean’s List for every semester that he has attended UNCW.

On top of these honors and activities, Dave is also very active in the community. He is a member of the Association of Computing Machinists and a Research Triangle Institute/EPA Research assistant. Dave is a computer consultant and web developer as well as a UNCW Learning Center tutor. He has also founded the UNCW Macintosh User’s Group and the CampusMacGroup.com website.

Dave’s greatest challenge that he has overcome as a non-trad is learning how to handle his zeal for learning in a classroom situation. He says “I love to learn and to that end I tend to be very zealous in my discussions and class contribution. Trying to find a happy medium between that and not being obnoxiously distracting (especially in light of being ‘The Old Guy”) has forced me to realize that sometimes it is better to sit back and let things happen. That is something that I would never do in a ‘real world’ situation.”

On the topic of greatest achievement, Dave says “I tend to be more of a leader, less of a follower. I’d like to think that by doing things differently I often open other’s eyes to possibilities they might not have previously considered. I also like to be known as ‘The One To Beat.’

I always make myself available to my classmates for help with their homework or projects because I am good at helping others understand difficult topics. In more than a couple of cases students have told me that I really helped them through some rough spots.

Outside of college, I am happy that I got to live an exciting life touring all over the US with a popular music group and producing records in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Mississippi, and Tennessee.”

Dave states that the personal attention he gets from faculty members is especially helpful in solving problems. “I am frequently surprised at the personalized attention that so many departments have shown me over the past couple of years. It is not unusual for a staff member to remember me specifically (it might be the hair) and it is rare that anybody doesn’t seem to go out of their way to help me out with my particular situation. I can certainly attest that in other universities that I have attended that it is not the norm!

Also, every single one of my teachers (and even others that I did not have!) has never failed to welcome me into their office to answer any questions or to answer any problems. Each of them is simply brilliant and often has plenty of other work to do but that never kept them from taking time to help me out. That means a lot.”

Dave would like to thank Dr. Sridhar Narayan of the Computer Science department for his help along the way. “Dr. Narayan is a consistent source of inspiration. Though he would surely blush if you ever mentioned it to him in person the man is simply a genius and has spent way too much of his time helping me out in many ways.”

When asked about the advice he would give other non-trads, Dave said “Don’t be afraid to get involved! Take advantage of everything that the program has to offer. It is usually the case that doing just a little extra work yields fantastic rewards.”

Dave’s plans for the future include attending graduate school for “at least a Master’s in Computer Science. If I can find the right program and the right specialization I will instead pursue a PhD.”
_____________________
The Seahawk Perch congratulates Dave Crist as our April 2005 Non-Trad of the Month!