To earn my B.A. in Liberal Arts, I engaged in extensive critical analysis, writing, and public speaking on current and past trends in computer science. I learned to evaluate these trends in terms of their historical context, ethical implications, and influence on the development community. Software Engineering not only requires strong programming and analytical skills, but strong written and oral communication skills, and an ability to research new technologies, put them in context, evaluate their worth, and apply them appropriately.

My work as a Liberal Arts major gave me these "softer" skills and sharpened my ability to evaluate, explain, and apply new technologies. I've included some writing samples below to demonstrate my abilities in these areas.

Writing Samples

Software Development Processes: A Comparison of The Capability Maturity Model & Agile/Scrum

Abstract: The software industry has a history riddled with failed software projects. Most experts agree, while the reasons for software failures are complex, they revolve around some combination of poor requirements analysis, an inability to manage changing requirements, poor architecture and system-wide design, and a lack of any software process. Quite tellingly, most experts also agree that these failures are avoidable. Two popular and very different software development processes, The Capability Maturity Model (CMM) and Agile/Scrum Development, are compared.

Software Development Processes: A Comparison of The Capability Maturity Model & Agile/Scrum »

Gender Disparities in Science & Engineering

Abstract: In January 2005 Lawrence Summers, then president of Harvard University, gave a speech on the under representation of women in the sciences and on science faculties of top universities. He essentially argued that the cause of this phenomenon is due to differences in men and women’s inherent nature, biology, and tastes. Studies in gender disparities debunk Summers' claims and ultimately show that bias, not biology, is to blame.

Gender Disparities in Science & Engineering »

The Hypothesis Project Report: Design & Functionality

Abstract: Hypothesis is an application that I developed as my senior thesis project at The Evergreen State College. It allows researchers to connect to and browse a variety of databases that are stored on remote servers, share their own databases with others, and export data for manipulation in data analysis programs such as Microsoft Excel, R, S and scripts written in Python. The application is an open source, cross-platform tool that researchers, scientists, professors and students can use to easily explore data and collaborate on research.

The Hypothesis Project Report: Design & Functionality »