By Mike Finney

DOVER — There are nine Delaware State University graduates with 4.0 grade-point averages who will be making the walk to receive their diplomas Saturday at 10 a.m. at Alumni Stadium.

Magnolia’s Brandi Nichols is among those perfect GPA graduates who will each be honored with the Presidential Academic Excellence Award, even though her path was a winding one filled with uncertainty as she switched her major and minor at the outset of her collegiate journey.

Not only that, but she was also forced to spend much of her college experience working virtually from home throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite the change in her career path and early goals, Ms. Nichols managed to flourish and will be receiving both her award and a BA in New Media in Arts during Saturday’s ceremony.

She will join Dover’s Anilu Paneda (Nursing) and New Castle’s Labrina Vancliff (Mass Communications) as Delawareans who will graduate with 4.0 GPAs from DSU Saturday.

Ms. Nichols said the past four years have just flown by.

“It’s just crazy because ever since I was little, I just felt like I’ve been in school constantly,” she said. “It’s crazy that it’s going to be over this weekend.”

Ms. Nichols, the daughter of Antwain and Bronta Nichols, is a native of Elkton, Maryland, but was raised mostly in Delaware in Newark and then Magnolia.

She arrived at DSU in the fall of 2018 as an Art Education major, while pursuing a minor in Spanish.

However, questions surrounding the working options of her chosen career path led her to change both her major and minor.

“I switched over my major in my freshman year,” Ms. Nichols said. “I came in with an Arts Education major with a Spanish minor, but after thinking about the possible career pathways and everything, I was like what major allows me to do that but is also related to art and being creative?

“So, I just switched my major to New Media in Arts and pursued a minor in Computer and Information Technology.”

Like most students, she often thought about several different fields she could possibly get into — and ones that piqued her interest — before deciding on New Media in Arts.

“It’s basically about you learning to be creative and apply your style and artistic expression through different mediums like technology, such as video, digital art, game design, whatever,” Ms. Nichols said. “It just allows you to use technology to be creative and I just thought that it provided me with more opportunities career-wise than an Arts Education major would have.”

Ironically, the COVID pandemic gave her additional time to rethink her career direction.

Just before, Ms. Nichols had thoughts of becoming a graphic designer and approached a magazine about an internship in that field. However, the COVID outbreak eliminated that possibility.

So, it was back to the computer and spending hours searching online for learning and intern experience opportunities.

Then, in February 2020, Ms. Nichols participated in an event that was pivotal in her career direction.

She and competed on a team in the DSU Code Swarm Hackathon — an annual University Computer Science Club competition in which teams create code for a new software or service.

In addition to giving her an opportunity to learn more about coding and being a part of the second-place team, the competition introduced Ms. Nichols to the digital specialty areas of UX and UI.

UX focuses on all the aspects of the interaction between a customer — or a potential one — with a product and its company.

Meanwhile, UI is concerned with interaction with the user and the digital device or product, such as the elements on the touchscreen of a smartphone.

As Ms. Nichols continued to increase her knowledge of such digital areas, she took advantage of the COVID environment by doing some graphic design internships online.

In the fall of 2020, Ms. Nichols landed a virtual UX/UI apprenticeship with the Office of Natural Resources in the U.S. Department of the Interior.

“It was a good experience because it taught me a lot of things, especially in the area of research, which is a crucial part of UX/UI,” she said.

Several more internship experiences would follow, including working for DSU’s Office of Career Services, a gaming entity, NASA, IBM, as well as with Reyets, a social justice technology start-up.

There were times in which she was doing two separate internship experiences at once.

“It’s been really crazy, but despite all that, COVID actually made me work more online as far as opportunities instead of in my own physical space,” said Ms. Nichols.

Apparently, she made a solid impression during her internship with IBM, as it has already hired her upon graduation. She will soon be moving to Austin, Texas, to work for the company as a UX visual designer.

“It’s definitely going to be a change because honestly, I wasn’t thinking I would be moving outside of the East Coast,” Ms. Nichols said. “I thought I would stay in Delaware for a while, go to Maryland or Pennsylvania.

“Moving to Texas is like halfway across the country. I literally have no friends, no family, and it’s definitely going to be a big adjustment, but honestly, I’m young and trying to get out there at look at different places. I’m definitely nervous but it’s kind of exciting at the same time.”

She has always found success in the classroom. After all, she graduated from Caesar Rodney High School with a 3.8 GPA.

After coming so close to perfection in high school she made a 4.0 GPA in college a steadfast goal at the beginning of her freshman year.

However, Ms. Nichols said, it was more than just being about grades. It’s about working outside the classroom as well.

“Don’t think the classroom is going to teach you everything you need to know,” said Ms. Nichols. “Go out there and do internships and competitions outside of the classroom, the earlier the better.

“Then you can build up your reputation, a background, a brand for yourself. So, when you graduate, it will be easier to market yourself. Everyone is graduating with an undergraduate degree, so you need to be able to differentiate yourself from others.”