The E-folio of Daniel Wedul

I was born in Billings Montana and lived there until I moved to Missoula for College.  I lived in Missoula for five years where I attended the University of Montana.  Currently I am living in Southern California while I job hunt. 

Growing up, I was always a part of some group.  First it was Cub and Boy Scouts where I reached Life.  I stopped going to Boy Scouts during my freshman year in high school because I was running out of free time.  I also played Little League Baseball until 8^th grade.  On top of all this I took karate lessons on and off the whole time.  I took lessons whenever I had the time (and my mom or dad had the time to drive me).

In the summer before 7^th and 8^th grade I had my first paying job.  One of the people most influential in my life is my tech ed. Teacher Mr. Prchal.  He also had a summer job running the concession stands for the local Pioneer League Baseball team, the Mustangs.  I got a job as a hawker with one of my friends.  We carried the pop and snack foods around in the stands and sold them on commission. 

After that year I switched partners and my new partner and I started tearing up the hawking seen.  He and I made quite a name for ourselves for dancing at the games.  The dancing started because people weren’t showing up to the games and we were getting bored trying to sell to empty seats.  Once we started dancing, folks started showing up more and sales and tips increased.  My partner and I continued to dance and sell until the summer before our senior years in high school.

During junior high I started to run cross country.  I was on the cross country team from 7^th grade through sophomore year.  Sophomore year I also joined the swim team.  At the end of my sophomore year I tried out for the cheer squad.  I cheered Junior and senior years in high school as well as all five years in college.  Cheerleading lasted all year long and made me have to choose between cheerleading and Cross country and Swimming.  I decided to take the path less taken and go with cheerleading. 

Some other activities I participated in during high school included Art Club, BPA, Key Club, Prom Committee, Student Government, Drama Club, and the School Newspaper.  I spent the most time with the School Newspaper.  I started writing for it during my freshman year and was offered an Editor’s spot for my sophomore year.  I turned it down because an upperclassman wanted the position too and I figured he could have it because I still had 3 years left.  I instead became the business manager for the newspaper.  I was in charge of selling, creating, and placing ads as well as collecting payments on them.  During my time at this position, the paper went from a 16 page 1 color paper to a 28 page full color paper.

Inevitably when it came time for college I decided on the University of Montana because of the Business School and Cheer Squad.  The Cheer Squad is what kept me in Missoula.  Not even half way through the first semester I realized that the business school wasn’t for me.  I found myself ignoring the teachers and programming during my business classes.  I took that as a hint to switch to a Computer Science major.  I completed all the classes of my first semester of business classes even though most of the semester was spent as a CS major.  I started taking all the CS classes that I was supposed to take as well as some Math classes that looked interesting.  I even took differential equations classes for fun.  After I finished a few more semesters I realized that I could receive the combined degree in Computer Science and Math.  Two of the classes required for this were General Physics I and II. 

After I finished General Physics one, I realized that I really enjoyed these classes and started signing up for more.  I think the thing that really drew me into physics was solving the problems.  I took more physics classes and realized that I was in line to get a Computational Physics degree as long as I went to school for an extra semester.   Actually, to my parents it was an extra semester.  I just didn’t tell them that I would have been able to finish my CS/MATH degree in three and half years.  Instead I finished with a CS/MATH degree and a Physics degree in four and a half years.  All while being a cheerleader and holding a job most of the time.

Starting when I lived in the dorms I tutored people.  There were always people knocking on my door asking for help, usually, but not always, in math.  Even in the classes I was taking, I was helping the others understand the topics.  I just had a knack for quickly learning the material and being able to rephrase if someone else didn’t understand.  Many times in the process of learning new material I would end up finding out other information on the subject.  I loved to find little tidbits about the history of formulas and the people that created/discovered them.

The biggest problem in school that I had was that sometimes I went off on too many tangents.  Many times (especially in my Physics classes) I would solve a problem and then write a program to either implement the solution or visualize the solution.  One of my regrets is that I would spend a couple hours writing a program and then say, “Oh. Wow.  That’s cool.”  Then I would just delete it.  Of course, this may be because many of the programs were written in the esoteric QBASIC.

Even though I was often sidetracked during studies I managed to graduate in December of 2003 with two degrees.  I spent another few months in Missoula finishing out the cheerleading season.  The squad had decided to go to Las Vegas in the beginning of March for the United Spirit Association (USA) cheerleading competition.  I did this with the squad and then finished out the basketball season that ended at the end of March.  I also committed myself to helping out at tryouts in April.  Officially the end of tryouts is when one cheer season ends and another begins.  Practices, however, usually don’t start up until the beginning of August.  Anyway, I was officially not a cheerleader any more as of about 6:00 PM on April 18.  I then bummed around Missoula until graduation on May 15.  At the end of May I packed up and moved to California.

From here you’ll have to check out my online diary.