6:51 PM

Cherrington Scholar

As Tyler attended the awards presentation for his final project of the year, he found himself on the stage for an unexpected award. Tyler was one of the finalists for the Cherrington Scholarship. To his further amazement, he ended up winning the scholarship!

The scholarship is named after a professor that used to work for BYU's Information Systems, but passed away April 2005 from brain cancer. This year is the first year the scholarship has been awarded. The scholarship is awarded to the student that has demonstrated excellent academic achievements and has helped fellow students to make their experience in the Information Systems "Junior Core" classes a more enjoyable one (by being helpful in their learning).

To be awarded the scholarship, you must be nominated by classmates and then the professors will make the final decision.

Tyler worked his butt off this year and it has paid off for him. He said that he thinks the course-setting experience for him was during a programming project early in the fall semester where he made a bank system. He said that he wanted to really get a better grasp on Java and try to learn as much as he could so he would understand more later. He recruited the help of an old friend, Mark Ransom, to help him make a better system. Mark was a great mentor for Tyler in this endeavor. He gave Tyler great direction and offered help when needed. Tyler forced himself to learn and understand many new programming topics. This desire to learn allowed Tyler to get good grades and help classmates.

Now that he is done with his Winter semester, he plans on furthering his education beyond the curriculum he will face with the Spring and Summer terms by undertaking a special project that will force him to learn even more. All of this, of course will be a distant second to the time he spends with his wife.