Mililani High School
UH Manoa
Software Engineer at LiveAction
When I was in high school, I thought only “super smart nerdy dudes” could do computer science, because that’s what I had observed. There was no way I was nearly smart or patient enough. When I was a freshman in college, I was unenthusiastically trying to decide between environmental engineering and law school. Out of curiosity, I decided to take an introductory computer science course over the summer. I remember on the first day of class, my professor said “At the end of this course, you will know if you hate computer science, or love it.” Obviously, I was in the second category. Since then, I’ve had CS courses where I was one of five females in a class of 60. I’ve also been in a class where lots of other students have had previous programming experience, whereas I was coming from pretty much zero prior knowledge. Don’t let any of that phase you. If you find something that intrigues you, fuels your creativity, empowers you, or is just FUN to you, don’t give up. Acknowledge the fact that you know nothing, and let this inspire you to always keep learning more. If you are at all curious, just try taking an introductory course and see what happens! Last year when I was finishing up graduate school, I was talking to an incoming freshman CS student. After I finished explaining what I do, she looked at me in awe and said “Wow! I want to be like you one day!” It was at that moment that I realized how far I had come. If I can do it, so can you.
