Tech Solution Planning Manager D&AI
Computer Engineering Major
Class of 2007
National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE)
Ki Alpha Christian Group
Phi Beta Sigma (predominantly African American)
‘Nothing is denied to the man with patience”
*Transcript Was Computer Generated*
hello
hello mr mcbride thank you
can you hear me
i can’t hear you
sorry i’m so used to using microsoft
teams i have to uh switch over to the
other happenings
but it’s so great to meet you finally oh
good to meet you thank you so much for
taking the time i’m sorry for the back
and forth oh problem no problem at all
how’s your day been going
was it coming up a bit pretty busy
weekend oh yes i’m because i’m a music
major myself and so we’ve had uh
performances and so this weekend i was
at a performance and i was earlier in
the day i was at a symposium
history
so
i’m just like my head i’m a bit like a
bobble head
nice
sounds like things have been moving
quite nicely for you yes yes
i appreciate your time i and thank you
so much for doing this
um
a little bit background um you know i’m
doing this digital narrative course and
we were asked hey just go into the into
the
body of the campus and just see if
there’s something that you know
attracts you that
you know and uh went to the alumni house
and myself and my friend karina
and there was this information about
these two black students from the 1900s
and i was like oh my gosh
wow
and then upon further research after
mildred left in 1924 there were no more
black students until the 1950s
wow yeah that’s a huge gap right there
yeah yeah and when you think about it
when they attended mildred and um i
don’t know them personally someone
called miss mildred and
reverend wealthy bro howard they
attended during the time of you know
separate but equal
so they
brought the law as it were and attended
an all-white college so the idea is just
to find out
where we are today we know it’s not
perfect there’s still not that many
black students but there’s a lot more
than there were and so when i
figured out over the decades going
backwards what life was like for us what
life is like for us here now in
comparison to what it has been and then
you know thank those two people for
breaking the barrier taking the steps
that allows us to be here today so we’re
really trying to find out from your
experience what it was like when you
were here you know
yeah so you definitely have to be
thankful for all the all the
trailblazers we we definitely are on the
shoulders of giants
absolutely absolutely so what i want to
do is we’re going to record this and
then we’re going to um upload this to
the website
um okay and we have been given a
permanent website um for the college to
do this with because we’re using as a
resource for the the black student um
association so i’m grateful for that
they’re gonna use it as a resource
so i want to kind of start be more
formal you can introduce yourself um you
know um
your graduation graduating class
and also um
your major
and then i really want to give you an
opportunity to to kind of talk about
really your experience rather than me
guide you do you know me
got it got it
sure well i can definitely introduce
myself um as you know i’m
will mcbride i started at the university
of the pacific in the department of
engineering um as a student and ended up
getting my degree in computer
engineering
um as far as when i graduated it’s way
back in 2007 so i’ve uh that’s 15 years
ago it seems like time really flies uh
since then
and um and since then i’ve uh
gotten a position with a company called
accenture it was actually
my first company out of college and i’ve
been with them ever since i’ve kind of
grown up within the company uh i started
off as a young analyst and today i’m
working in the dating applied
intelligence division as a solution
architect wow that’s amazing
wow so would you say that
your degree
from uop was something that was very
advantageous for you with that oh
definitely definitely it it opened up so
many doors and i think what’s really
unique about pacific is that
at least for the engineering students
they really uh put an emphasis on making
sure that we all had uh
like real hands-on experience i was able
to get an internship at cisco systems
and actually worked at the company in
san jose for
a total of about a year and a half as
part of my program so we basically are
able to you know come out the door with
our degree and we can say that we have
about a year and a half of engineering
experience
so the education it just
vastly opened up so many doors for me
and it’s it’s it’s been the key you know
the education is something that no one
can ever take away from you later on so
uh it’s i i feel like for
african-americans education is
definitely a key for us to see the the
change that we want to see in our
community for sure it’s amazing
with it being engineering would you say
that there was a lot of african
americans in your class or no
yeah there weren’t so many of us
in this in the school of engineering
i think there were there was maybe about
um a handful of us that were in the uh
the classes and it kind of got narrow
and narrower as he kind of progressed
with the program because the handful of
us that were there kind of divvyed off
into civil engineering or
you know uh mechanical engineering i’ve
veered off into like i said
more of the electrical and computer
engineering side of things so
yeah there weren’t very very many of us
there on campus um but we did form a
really great club called uh mesby
national society of black engineers so
we would come together to uh to interact
and
you know the the university was really
good about sponsoring us to go out to
some of those conferences uh that are
nationwide so that we were able to
both
really collaborate within each other at
uop but then also do some more
networking with a lot of the
universities that were nearby
great to your knowledge does that um
society still exist
yes nesbi is still going strong
uh so i actually was just at uop a
couple of weeks ago and i ran into
another student who was part of an sb
and we exchanged our little linkedin
profiles and such because i definitely
want to try to keep the ear to the
ground on how those guys are doing and
support it if they ever need any help oh
wow so then again the comparison you
didn’t there was a handful um when you
were around
now do do you know if there’s any more
if the class and size has increased as
african-american involvement in police
let’s just say you know i i talked to a
couple of friends it sounds like it’s
pretty much the same
as uh as when i was a student there so
there i know definitely there’s a lot of
initiatives that are are going on to
increase the inclusion and diversity
side of things so uh that’s something
that i’m definitely looking to get more
involved with eop in the uh the next
coming uh months and uh and year ahead
well that’s great i like the connection
that even though you’ve left you still
feel that you’re part of the uh pacific
family and then specifically like you
say with the nsbe um association there
that’s great
um as an african american male
did you ever experience
any bias to your knowledge
you know what um
i have to say that i didn’t really feel
like i experienced direct bias but what
i felt like was uh was something along
those lines is that i would sit
sometimes in my engineering class and
you know be introduced to say one of the
tools like the oscilloscope and it’s
just like a really uh
hard effort to ramp up on using that
oscilloscope and i would just sit there
and wonder so it’s like why is the
student next to me just flying through
this and i was just like man how are you
picking this up so fast and he’s like oh
my mom and dad are engineers and they
have oscilloscopes in the garage i’m
just like well that that explains a lot
because my dad was a bus driver
so
you know i think
from us
from a community standpoint you know
maybe the african-american community
doesn’t get exposed to things as early
as some of the other cultures that we
interact with and that can kind of
affect you but
we have to make sure that we overcome
those
you know imposter syndrome if it tries
to crop up and make sure that you know
it doesn’t matter i i got accepted into
this university i have what it takes
yeah i may
need a little bit more time to ramp up
on it but i got this and i think that’s
the attitude that you have to have and i
think
that’s one thing that uop helped out
with this because it was so small you
were almost always forced to take a
leadership role or to you know take on
things and be more hands-on because you
know it’s just a smaller student body so
that you get more
more attention that way absolutely i
like that idea
can you tell me if you were here today
and there were new african-american male
students coming
in um
regardless of what major
are there is there anything specific you
would say to encourage them
i would just really try to encourage
them to
you know
take advantage of the
the office hours that you have with your
professor don’t sit there trying to
figure everything out on your own um or
or try to feel like uh
like you’re too good to ask questions i
mean that’s that’s the kind of
cornerstone of uop is that uh the
professors are there for you so
interact with them early um make sure
you get things cleared up early uh
you know
especially like that that first couple
of two years i feel like when they hit
you with all the calculus those those
entry-level engineering classes can kind
of be
uh
kind of almost those classes that weed
out a lot of people so i would encourage
any student you know to interact with
their professors early and find out
what’s needed to be successful that’s so
cool i
thank you for that i’m going to ask you
one more thing
i might stretch it to two i don’t know
because i’m enjoying our conversation
okay let me go back a little bit
were you part of any other organizations
black organizations or college
organizations whilst you were here
yes
so i started off i was involved with
a christian group called kai alpha so
that was a really um
that was a really great experience met
some really awesome people that kind of
mentored me helped to expand my network
and then like i said after uh after i
was involved with nesbi i also
had the opportunity to become a part of
phi beta sigma fraternity which is a
predominantly african-american
fraternity
and that was probably one of the best
decisions that i made because the
friendships the brotherhood that i was
able to gain from from that experience
carries through even today i’m still
very active with my fraternity brothers
and
it’s it’s been a great impact
and to your knowledge does it exist
today here on campus so that’s actually
a new piece of information like i said i
just uh
had the chance to visit uop so
we met with uh maria blandisi and uh
she’s interested in bringing uh you know
the divine nine uh fraternities and
sororities back to campus so actually my
fraternity will be
much more involved in the coming weeks
we’ll be doing uh keynote speaking we’ll
be
ramping up some of our you know youth
mentoring groups uh so so keep your ear
to the ground you’ll be uh seeing us out
there definitely definitely
my last question
do you have a quote that’s something
that encouraged you that you’d like to
share with
the watchers and listeners out there
today
a good quote um
i think uh the the quote that got me
through a lot of eop and this is a quote
from my mom
she she actually homeschooled us um
growing up to eop and uh i’d say that
it’s uh nothing has been to knock them
out with patients and you know i think i
carried that forward um and that got me
through uh through a lot of those tough
classes so that one more time nothing is
denied
nothing is denied to the man with
patience that’s amazing
i i agree with that
it’ll take a long time but it will
happen just keep going
tonight you know with temerity i think
that’s great i i have so many more
questions but i’m
cognizant of your time
and um
yeah
thank you so much
well it’s been a pleasure chatting with
you gary lane thank you again for
setting this up oh thank you hopefully i
get to see you on campus uh in the uh
coming weeks ahead well you’ve got my
email so when you’re i’m coming please
email me and i definitely try to make
sure i’m available to be there meet you
in person okay that sounds awesome for
sure
all right oh you know i didn’t forget
the last question maybe i should do it
hopefully she can tweak it for me
you said you were homeschooled
yes
how did you learn about
uop
so um after after being homeschooled
what i actually ended up doing was
transferring to a community college sac
sac city college and uh it was i got
involved with the with another uh
science engineering group called mesa
and we
were
basically asked to go to some of the
college fairs so when i met the
recruiter and he kind of shared with me
how uop is really kind of a close-knit
uh smaller school that appealed to me
because
uh as a homeschooler i’m used to getting
a lot of the attention i got all the
intention of my um my my teaching uh
coming up so that appealed to me more so
than you know some of the larger uc
berkeley’s where you’re just like one in
a class of 60 or something not to knock
any of those universities but you know
having the opportunity to have
more individual one-on-one time with the
professor was a really big pool for me
and also the fact that the engineering
department made sure or guaranteed you
to have a whole year and a half worth of
real engineering experience upon
graduation that that sold it for me
wow that’s amazing
thank you once again for just being so
open and shown
oh no problem
thank you and i look forward to being
the possibility of meeting you when
you’re back on campus most definitely
thank you so much all right take care
William McBride Jr., Elaine Hanly, Stockton, April 25, 2022.
