Walter Voit
“Attending UT Dallas was so much more than the hours of credit I had accumulated by the time I graduated. The vibrant atmosphere there conveyed a real sense of urgency to students, the expectation that we were all there to build the university into something bigger and greater. Being a part of that was very rewarding.
“As a high school student I had been well-versed in the liberal arts but my knowledge of computers and electronics was sub-par. The professors at UT Dallas helped me to quickly catch up with my more experienced peers. And, at the same time, allowed me exposure to a broad and exciting educational program.
“When I was a child, my parents instilled in me a relentless passion for solving puzzles and, even in junior high school, I began to see that the transforming power of computers was going to be the solution to so many of the world’s problems. So, making a choice of an academic pursuit was easy. I needed to seriously study computers to learn how to solve the ‘puzzles’ that fascinated me. UT Dallas equipped me to choose the most promising tools and structures to help me move toward my goal of attempting to find ways to deal with complicated situations and to analyze them in a rational manner. The learning experience I had as an undergraduate ultimately pointed me toward the field of nanotechnology.
“And every step of the way my professors constantly instilled in me a restless urge for problem solving and creative thinking. So many of them were mentors inside the classroom and out.
“What I found on the UT Dallas campus was a wide variety of educational possibilities. The university gave me a rigorous academic experience as well as a world-class education bolstered by wonderful travel opportunities.
“And the friends I made there will be friends for a lifetime. So much of the education one receives at UT Dallas takes place outside the classrooms. From late night board games to cross-country trips to dealing with the deadline pressures of the school paper, or simply enjoying being a part of the everyday campus life helped make me who I am today.
“I often think back on my decision to attend UT Dallas, and I realize that the endless opportunities provide me by the McDermott Scholars program far outweigh any education I might have received at one of the so-called elite universities.”
Walter Voit, an engineering and computer science major from Charleston, SC was among the first class of McDermott Scholars, was managing editor of The Mercury, and went to Los Alamos laboratories as a paid student consultant. He is a Ph.D. candidate and Presidential Fellow at Georgia Tech.
