The Project

Plymouth is a town in New Hampshire through which run the railroad and Pemigewasset River. It has a small-town square with a doughnut shop on one end and a diner right out of the 30s on the other. There is a jewelry store and a white church with steeple.

Nestled in the foothills of the White Mountains, the town is adorned by gorgeous colored leaves in the Fall. It has steep hills to challenge bicyclists and joggers. And it is graced by the presence of Plymouth State University.

When I was attending it was still just a College. I majored in Applied Computer Science so that I could get a good-paying job. And I minored in Music, which was my first passion.

I graduated with good SAT scores from a Catholic High School, also in New Hampshire. So, I had my pick of colleges. But, Plymouth had the best music department I had seen of all the colleges I went to in person to check out. The best. And over the four-and-a-half years I was there, I made quite a contribution to the department though my performances. The musicianship classes were quite rewarding. And I spent a lot of time in the Music and Theater Departments, across the street from that 30's diner, in a town where at least one of the professors had a big, tall hairdo like the fashion from the 50's and she didn't look out of place.

In order to graduate I had to finish my Senior Programming Project. I majored in Applied Computer Science. I had to get an "A" in order to graduate with a degree due to the low grades I had earned in my other classes in my Major.

Considering my G.P.A., this, in the words of the Computer Science department chair, would be "...by the skin of my teeth." I designed an ambitious project related to my Minor.

It was a program written in PASCAL, a language designed to teach students the concepts necessary to be good programmers. The program was designed to drill musicians on musical intervals, which relates to music theory.

I remember spending the days and sometimes nights on the computer debugging and typing in code for my Senior Project.

In the words of the Department Chair, who was my mentor on the project: "You knew you had to receive an 'A,' and that's what you did."

I did graduate on a wonderful and sunny day on May 20th, 1989. This ceremony was attended by my parents. One of my classmates said I looked goofy walking across the stage.

I am careful to keep my diploma where ever I go. Every time we move I pack it carefully, having just barely earned it.