My name is Charles E. Goins Jr. and I am a 1999 Industrial Technology graduate of Alcorn State University. I am currently living in Bristow, VA where I am married to Tara Rochelle Collins, ASU graduate class of 1999. I have a son, Jalen Charles Goins, and I work for Lockheed Martin as a Systems Engineer.

My road to graduating in IT (Industrial Technology) was a very rocky one. I didn’t even start out as an Industrial Technology major. I started out as a Computer Science major. After I became a very popular young man on campus, a funny thing happened to me. My grades began to slip very badly so I decided that I needed a change and Computer Science was not for me. Because I still wanted to be around electronics, I figured out that IT was the place for me. Little did I know that I had to encounter Dr. Moses. I thought changing your major was easy. You go to the Business Office, ask to change your major and that was all to it. I didn’t know at that time that you had to get the Department Head to sign off on the request.

I went to talk with Dr. Moses, Chairman of the IT Department. To be honest, after talking to him, he let it be known to me that the IT Department didn’t want any “stragglers”. The IT had a very high reputation and he wasn’t going to let me or anyone else come in and tarnish it. So he didn’t sign my request to have my major changed. Instead, he looked at my transcript and he worked out a schedule for me. He told me that I had one semester to prove myself to him. He said if I wasn’t on the Dean’s List, I was not going to be allowed to change my major to IT. Well, that semester passed and I found myself on the Dean’s List. I went back to Dr. Moses to get my major changed.

Dr. Moses just looked at me and his words were, “first, congratulations on your accomplishment, but if you think that one semester is going to change my mind or impress me, you have got to be kidding.” Dr. Moses rode me the entire time I was in IT, which I really needed. He gave me projects to work on. He put me in his Industrial Technology Summer Camps, mentoring high school students. Many of the high school students are now at Alcorn State University, other universities or will soon graduate high school. I still keep in contact with many of them. Dr. Moses also put me in his Senior Projects class. You know that was no walk in the park. It made me work harder and prepared me for what I endure today in the workforce. I would have to say that the IT department saved me. It made me focus on what I wanted to do with my life and it also gave me the skills to do it. As Dr. McGowan would say, it made me see the BIG PICTURE. The way I see it, if it saved me, then it can save anyone. So my message to the students of the Industrial Technology Department is there is nothing you can’t accomplish. If you feel that your GPA isn’t where you want it to be, you can still work to make it better. If you feel there are not enough jobs in the world that you qualify for, you are very wrong. If you feel like because you don’t attend one of those so-called “BIG” universities and the deck is stacked against you, it’s not. I work with people that graduated from universities all over the nation. Most of them have never heard of Alcorn. When I tell them about our IT curriculum, it turns out that we took most of the same classes. So hang in there, I know it seems rough, but it’s worth every minute.

Charles E. Goins Jr.
Alcorn State University
Industrial Technology class of ‘99