Joshua Borthick

As a child, my fondest wish was to make money playing video games. Where did the money come from? I had no idea, but I would find it playing games! This naivet, compounded by the social debacle of Autism, characterized my youth. During high school and early college life, I tended to blow as a leaf in the wind and accomplished about as much as any leaf dreams. I left Ozarks Technical Community College in Springfield with a 0.88 GPA. Traditional college life was not for me, I told myself as I floated between fast food restaurants and eventually chose to enter welding school at Drumright Central Tech in Oklahoma and earned a certificate of completion in 2008. Life was good for a few years: my work was my art form and I enjoyed not only seeing a beautiful, completed weld, but having a skill I could perfect. Eventually, however, I fell into a spiral of depression and substance abuse and spent two years homeless in downtown Tulsa. Struggling to get my body clean and my finances back on track was a worthy challenge, and I returned to welding. Six years later, I recognized a growing restlessness since there is little academic challenge in skilled labor and enrolled in Tulsa Community College in August 2020. My greatest strength is that I never give up. I worked very hard during my tenure as a laborer, developing the muscle of discipline. When I returned to college, I poured myself into each course's work and ensured that I understood each topic. If I hit an academic stumbling block, my processes include searching Online and finding a short tutorial to guide me until I can complete the tasks assigned to me, taking advantage of, primarily, the math help tables at the MSU Library, and, of course, one-on-one time with the professor. It took those many years and failures to admit I was not already as smart as I could be, but by learning to apply myself, I realized that I had a love of intellect and art. My interests blossomed in math, science, computer programming, and philosophy. In late October 2018, I began teaching myself a programming language via YouTube and other free sources on the suggestion of a friend in the software field. At first, it seemed very difficult, but by the end of that first YouTube series, I was hooked. I completed a course on computer science offered by Harvard and MIT through EdX.com, and I knew this was what I wanted to do as a career. I worked hard to raise my grades high enough to merit enrolling at Missouri State University, earned a 4.0 in the fall semester of 2021, and was admitted to the MSU Honors College the next spring. I lack the youth of recent high school graduates, but I know how to push myself and understand what is at stake in the wider world. My current attractions are toward machine learning and artificial intelligence. One day I hope to be able to impart the understanding of software engineering to children and adults, alike, and enhance the very techniques of teaching computer science.