Jaime's College Education At R.I.T.

   Hello to all. My name is Jaime Scott and I'm a current, nineteen year-old, African-American and have completed my first year at Rochester Institute of Technology(R.I.T.) majoring in Computer Science in addition to being in the process of creating an undergraduate Robotics major given my long-time and deep passion for it.  



 Moving forward and in giving you all some background on myself, I was raised in a single-parent home and have been supported mainly by my mom & grandma throughout my life so far. Where I currently reside in a low-income neighborhood within Piladelphia, the crime & violence are at staggering levels with project developments only blocks away. Upon getting robbed and beat walking to school one day in my neighborhood, I took martial arts classes where I've since received my first-don black belt in Tae Kwon Do. Adding to this, my mom & grandmother have been putting forth nothing but their best efforts in supporting my continued education for as long as I can remember. I can also personally attest to my first year of college being one of the hardest(if not the hardest) adjustments I've ever had to make in my life so far with many changes having to be made in how I do things including how I manage my time among other particulars. On top of this, and given recently unexpected circumstances, my mother has taken up an additional job while my grandma has continued putting forth her most arduous of personal efforts in addition to mine, to help put me through school and graduate.  And even though I've been steadily applying for academic, engineering and tech-related scholarships & grants in addition to finding more work on top of my current software & robotics internship with respected roboticist, Ian Ingram, from California(which I received after networking on my own) I've still been struggling to gather sufficient funds for my continued 5-year undergraduate program at R.I.T. and later graduate program.


  Regardless of all of this, I've refused to give up or ever stop pursuing my short & long-term goals and recently, was anounced as being one of the 50 selected applicants out of thousands who applied nationwide(individuals of African-American descent or women only) to receive a slot at the Consensus 2015 digital currency summit in NYC on September 10th (a single ticket is worth $1,500.00). 


  In addition to this, over the years, I've heavily involved myself in constantly learning about how the world works through watching educational programs on the Science channel, TED talks(a favorite) and CuriosityStream in addition to teaching myself how to solve problems through code through high school computer science classes and online websites including Coursera (took a Stanford University Startup Engineering course) & Codecademy where I've already obtained skills in web design(HTML, CSS, Javscript) JQuery libraries, creating web applications with AngularJS and using Java for mobile Android development. In addition to this, I've been prototyping my own personal projects with Arduino boards & Raspberry Pis with some of them visible in the Summary section of my Linkedin profile . On top of this, I've participated in a decent amount of high school hackathons (you can view a video of me and a teammate discussing our mobile health-based iOS app 'Inside Your Head' from PilotPhilly here) as well as college-based ones during my first two semesters at R.I.T. including RUHacks , Brickhacks and my most recent one being at the Mastercard: Masters of Code hackathon in California. I also plan attending TechCrunch Disrupt later this month in California to help showcase my problem-solving abilities to professionals in the field and network with like-minded invidividuals.  

  Moreover, upon my first year of high school at G.W. Carver High School of Engineering and Science(H.S.E.S), I began involving myself in the E&S Robotics Club  there and participated in various competitions including F.I.R.S.T. Robotics, SeaPerch and VEX. I eventually became the President of the Club by my senior year after serving various other roles including programmer & fundraiser(where I ended up selling the most F.I.R.S.T. LED light bulbs out of all the registered teams in the country). Given my personal commitment to the field of robotics throughout high school, I was unexpectedly given the opportunity to provide a solo robotics presentation to students at the People for People Charter(PFP) school in North Philadelphia (photos documenting this experience have been posted to my Linkedin profile for anyone who may be interested) during my senior year by a prestigious Stanford graduate and teacher at PFP (whom I met at a Stanford information session weeks prior). In giving this presentation, I then soon received various letters from the students all ecstatic and inpsired by it as a whole. Within the same year, I was chosen to be a Google Glass recipient, earned the title of 'Senior Engineer of the Year' and graduated with honorole status.  







  Moving up the current timeline, I actively participate in the RI.T. Space Exploration Club  and helped perform research as a member of the Software & Analytics team on establishing hardware & software to be used in the development of our CubeSat. The initial goal of the Club is to send the CubeSat into space as a payload onboard a rocket within the coming years. A NASA scientist among others, have been helping further the devleopment of the CubeSat as well.



  In addition to this, I also participated in the R.I.T. Robotics Club (ongoing involvement since high school) over the last two semesters where they recently provided me funding towards new parts for my personal capacitive-sensing project(visible in the picture above) that I've been developing on my own after first doing this Makezine project with a friend.  After doing this, I then incorporated hand gestures and the removal of the required wooden box after many hours of hard work, simulated similar results which can be viewed here. I've since further developed on that and have propelled it to even greater heights where it now encompasses body movements. Upon bringing this project to Computer & Information Sciences department heads & other professors it immediately sparked their interest and I've since been further developing the software & hardware of the project to help the thousands of hard-of-hearing students on campus who I feel can truly benefit off of it. Lastly, I'm also a current member of the National Society of Black Engineers and have also been involved with the organization since my earlier high school years.


 Moving forward, as an active blogger, I constantly write articles through my own volition on topics including: science, tech, robotics & sustainability with my recent entry titled 'The Future of Transportation: Elon Musk's Hyperloop' having unexpectedly garnered 25,000 views, nearly 700 likes and several comments all written by professionals on Linkedin which you can view here. Furtermore, I've even had my articles on Google Glass, Meta Glass & 4K resolution published in the physical copies of the teen magazine 'Eh The Mag'  which you can view in detail on my Linkedin profile   (where I've recently achieved the honor of being in the top 1% ranked of my over 2,000 professional connections as well as being the #1 ranked at R.I.T. altogether.) Moreover, I've been recently selected to submit a scholarly article for the Robotics & Automation journal and have had Part 1 of my recent article titled "The Future of Space Exploration: Enter a New Horizon" published in the International Gazette newspaper with Parts 2 & 3 being published over their next two monthly issues(given the length and scope of my article as a whole). To close, as I mentioned earlier, I'm also a current software & robotics intern for a roboticist out in California where I'm helping to develop and add insight onto his several robotics projects on the aspect of improving wireless communications by using XBee radios and in helping learn and develop on alogorithms for use in his robotics projects.





  Despite all of the things I've done through my personal efforts over the years with the help of many others along the way, I am now facing a critical financial situation within my family that if not appropriated in due time, will make it extremely difficult for me to complete my continued education at R.I.T., achieve my bachelor's in Computer Science(and hopefully Robotics), attend graduate school to eventually receive my doctorate degree and help solve some of our world's biggest problems by aiding in the creation of the technological future for our species. I refuse to give up working towards my goals regardless and know in my heart, that I'll reach them one day soon.  






  In closing, I also enjoy feeding the homeless cats and people in my neighborhood, volunteering for various organizations, donating blood, reading books(love this) and skateboardi in my free time. All this being said, I now respectfully and humbly ask anyone who sees this campaign(if willing and able) to help me in achieving my goals of continuing my pursuit of higher education and making something of myself so that I can continue doing what I love to do for the rest of my life in addition to helping create the technological future of our species despite current circumstances. Moreover, I respectfully ask that all who see this campaign share it to others(if willing and able) in an effort to help spread word to them as well as donating towards this cause as a whole if you wish. Absolutely all support and any funds that are received towards my campaign as a whole is appreciated beyond any expression of words...I will continuously make updates to this campaign to keep everyone in the loop with my progress over time. All donors(either anoynmous or with their name visible) will be inlcuded in a list of supporters towards this campaign that I will publish in a PDF as an update within the imminent weeks. In closing, I thank everyone in advance who supports this campaign in the way which you see fit. Have a blessed day!