Orangesoft’s Women in Technology 2023 Scholarship Program
Below is my essay:
Since taking my first programming class, I have known that I want to become a software developer. I have also been inspired by my father’s military service and my past research opportunities. I would like to get a masters in computer science to do research and/or help the federal government.
I love the creativity you can find in programming. I loved it so much that in my free time, I would create my own fantasy video games in C++. Despite my love for it I was not sure what I wanted to do with my programming abilities. All I knew was I wanted the opportunity to program all day and get paid for it.
When I asked my dad, he told me when he was unsure of his future career path at my age, he joined the military. I decided that I will work for the government once I graduate from college. Not only would I be able to get paid to program all day, but I would also get to help others throughout the country with my work.
It was not until my research opportunities that were supported by the government that I realized doing research for them would be perfect for me. I had the opportunity to attend the Joint Science and Technology Institute (JSTI) and Army Educational Outreach Program (AEOP). When at JSTI, I created a library for PyTorch to help visualize heat spread in 2D. This work was based on a previous program written in Fortran to show ocean water’s heat spread. I worked with a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, named Li Tang, and had a lot of fun working. There is nothing I enjoy more than just sitting down and coding. JSTI allowed us to sit down 8 hours a day on weekdays and code for our research. I soon realized I wanted to do research, and from what I learned from my mentor Dr. Tang, I want to do research for the government at labs like LANL.
Almost immediately after JSTI participated in the Army Education Outreach Program at the University of Texas at Arlington. While there I cleaned and plotted crop yield data using R. The research was fun and interesting. I also got to meet several graduate students during my time there who were doing research with USDA data. This cemented the idea of me doing research with a computer science degree.
During my time at JSTI, I had the opportunity to see the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). While there, I heard about the work they did with nuclear weapons and how it tied into the work at LANL. I would like to do something similar with my work research at a government run and funded laboratory. I will create something that can be used by the Department of Defense to protect us from foreign and internal threats. This will help keep my country, family, and friends safe. Therefore, this is the perfect career for me.