Dear Friends & Family,

This is news that I have been accepted into the Computer Science PhD program at the University of New Hampshire for the Fall of 2018, with significant scholarship. I will be graduating from UNH Manchester with a M.S. Information Technology degree – officially in September of 2018, while I will be walking in the graduation ceremony this May 17th, 2018 with high honors. I especially want to thank my family for all the support that they’ve provided me over the years – especially my mother, Diane Labrie. She has done countless things to support me, such as prepare meals on busy days, let me use her car to commute to Manchester two to three times a week, and provide emotional support in hard times.

My program at UNH Durham will be much tougher than the IT program that I have been in for the past two years. I will be majoring in Artificial Intelligence, which is more based on mathematics than implementation – even though implementation is still an important component. I can deliver on a dime, and my 4.0 GPA shows that I take school seriously. My friends at school would describe me as a professional student – often not conversing in extraneous conversations with anyone beyond school content. It’s not that I don’t care about other people’s personal lives – it’s just that I take my profession so seriously.

I must begin by taking a lot of preparatory math classes and prerequisites, because the M.S. IT program doesn’t have a math requirement. The computer science degree will be heavily based in computer programming – especially with regards to calculus. This is the hardest thing I have ever attempted, and I’ve failed tasks that are much simpler than this in the past – however I believe that my M.S. IT degree was good preparation for this next journey that I’m about to embark on, and I believe that I’ll be very successful. It’s because I spend 40+ hours a week working on homework, even when there isn’t enough homework to fill up that much time. I’ve read hundreds of books over the past several years, and I’m sure that quota will only increase now that I’m working on a PhD.

This is probably the best time for me to work on a PhD, and while the opportunity cost is high because of how much I could be making with my Master’s of IT, I believe it is the right decision. I want to pursue both teaching and being a scientist in a laboratory setting. I will likely wait until my third or fourth year in this program before I would consider taking on a teaching internship, while that is always a possibility. I want to make sure I’m well grounded in principles first, and that I have enough time to manage my class load. This program will probably take me 4-5 years to complete, and I am aware of at least 3 other students that are considering highly pursuing the same tract that I have embarked on now that I’ve announced it. I’d be happy to accept anyone as a classmate – we’re going to need to stick together and work hard on this task!

--Patrick R. McElhiney