April 19, 2024

Soccer Player Kicks Computer Science Master’s Into High Gear

UMW senior Steven DeVerteuil is the first to take advantage of a ‘4+1 pathway’ in computer science that allows students to receive early admission to grad school and spend less time earning a master’s degree. Photo by Karen Pearlman.

UMW senior Steven DeVerteuil is the first to take advantage of a ‘4+1 pathway’ in computer science that allows students to receive early admission to grad school and spend less time earning a master’s degree. Photo by Karen Pearlman.

Goalkeeper Steven DeVerteuil expects the unexpected on the soccer field. A startling score. A fortuitous save.

It’s what happened in the classroom that threw him off guard. A course he took to fulfill a University of Mary Washington liberal arts and sciences requirement peeled back the layers of a technology – and a world – he had taken for granted.

“It kept opening up my mind and pushing me in ways that I thought I could never be pushed,” DeVerteuil, a UMW senior, said of his major, a subject he discovered by chance. Now the first to pursue a Mary Washington partnership program in computer science and applications, he’s positioned to earn a master’s degree in less than two years and perhaps a career in the big leagues.

“I expect Steven will be very successful,” said Associate Professor of Computer Science Ian Finlayson, who was department chair when the program, part of Virginia’s Tech Talent Pipeline, was formed. Read more.