Twenty-two-year old Kitaka Craig takes a moment to introduce himself. First of all, I am from Guyana which is in South America and my main reason for coming to the United States is to further my studies within the computer technology field and I am going to school at Bowie State University and Bowie which is located in Maryland is about fifteen or twenty minutes outside of Washington, DC.
Bowie State University was Kitaka's number one school pick because his aunt and uncle lives in the area, however he says once he started going there, he initially didn't like it, but that has changed. “Well, first when I started attending Bowie State I didn’t like it that much, but eventually I got a couple of friends and luckily for me I met the right group of friends and from there I got introduce into different activities on campus,” he says.
“I met a lot of positive influential people in my life and it has taken me and I [have] grown as a person and today it is just an overwhelming experience,” he says. “[And] I continue to grow day in and day out learning new things personally, academically and stuff that will help me achieve greater things in life.”
Since he had worked with computers before, deciding on a major came easy for Kitaka. “My major is Computer Technology focusing on the internet with a minor in Computer Graphics and I mainly choose this major because I was always interested in Computers and while I was out of high school for a little bit I did some hardware repairs and software repairs and then I realized that I wanted to do something more focus with helping people and since the internet is a growing thing worldwide, I just decided that the internet and making web pages and helping customers and dealing with people day to day would be the best thing for me so I decided to pick up dealing with the internet.”
Kitaka is a second semester junior. He says going to college is very important because it is the backbone to him having a good future. “Education is very important to me because it is basically the backbone to any career in the future,” he says.
“For instance, most people whom I go to school with one degree they might not necessarily work in the field they got that degree in but they still have good jobs doing stuff that they like,” he adds. “So getting this education is the backbone to my future and I look forward to learning and going to class everyday because I have this mentality that you learn something new everyday so a lot of people see me going to class and I may not actually sit and write notes like everybody else, but I pay close attention to what the teacher has to say and once before the exam I will read over my textbook and make mental notes,” he says.
“Going to class has become a second habit to me because since I have started college I haven’t missed more than four classes and that is because I was sick basically.”
So how is life living on campus? Kitaka says, “Living in the dorm is quiet for me mainly because I have a single so I don’t really come into contact with people, but I had a room in my first semester school and living in the dorm it actually is beneficial to anybody because for example if you had a problem with an assignment you are trying to do, the person two floors beneath you may be in the same class and may be able to help you out versus that if you are staying at home or off campus you won’t have that network or connection between you and the other person that sits next to you in class and lives two floors beneath you.”
Kitaka will graduate from Bowie State University in December 2007. He does, however have plans for himself after that. “Well my immediate future plans is to attend graduate school and upon graduation from that I probably will own my own business which deals with designing web sites for consumers and doing graphics as well.”