My name is Danielle Perszyk. I will be graduating from St. Norbert College in the Spring of 2017, majoring in Computer Science and Mathematics. I moved around a lot as a child, but even so, I call Greendale, a small suburb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, my hometown. Growing up I always loved technology, but there were never all that many opportunities through school to immerse myself in the field of Computer Science. Starting off at St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin, I was in school to become a high school math teacher. After two semesters, I decided that teaching was not what I truly had in mind for my future.

With my original mathematics major, we were required to take an introductory computer science course. It was then that I truly discovered my love and aptitude for computer programming. I've been developing my skills ever since. With three internships under my belt (one in security and two in different development areas of computer science), I can now say with 100% certainty that this is what I'm meant to do with the rest of my life.

• To use mathematics and computer science to effectively and efficiently solve real world problems and benefit society.
• To continue applying an ever-expanding base of knowledge to create business process improvements and increase efficiency and productivity.
• To succeed in professional and challenging environments and gain critical experience in the application of advanced mathematics and computer science.

My philosophy is this, but it'll sound a bit cliche: believe in yourself. You can accomplish anything, then. There are so many times when I wanted to just give up on a project because I felt like it was too difficult, or I wasn't good enough. However, after a few years, I finally was able to reach the point in my professional development where I felt like I actually trusted myself. I'm proud of myself for reaching this level, but know that there is so much more to learn. I want nothing more than to continue learning for as long as I can (which is great, because if you don't keep learning in Computer Science, you'll fall extremely behind, and you'll just be out of luck.)

Regardless, I will strive for the excellence in life that I know that I can achieve, and feel that everyone should strive for the same.