Participant story: Sophia (she/her)
“I really want to be at the forefront of innovation and creating technologies that help change the world.”
1) Tell us a little about your life
I am a recent high school graduate and I’m so excited to join Techtonica. I have always been a go-getter, taking AP classes and getting myself involved in as many extracurriculars as possible. I applied to twenty colleges and after getting all of my decisions back, I ultimately could not afford any of the colleges I got into without additional financial support. I ultimately decided that I still want to go to college but I could not afford it right now, so I started looking for jobs I could do temporarily. I looked into coding bootcamps such as Hackbright, App Academy, and General Assembly, but all were still very expensive. With three days until the Techtonica application closed, I decided that I would apply, and I quickly finished all the pre-application work and submitted my application — the rest is history!
2) What made you decide to pursue a software engineering career and apply for Techtonica?
I decided to pursue a software engineering career because I really enjoy solving problems and I believe that technology is the future of innovation in our generation. I really want to be at the forefront of innovation and creating technologies that help change the world. I also know that the tech field has a lot of passionate people who are interested in logic, solving problems, and puzzles, which I am also very interested in.
3) What are you most excited to learn while at Techtonica?
I am most excited to learn how to be a software engineer, but I am also really excited to learn about all the participants in the cohort and all of our passions and interests. I’m also excited to learn how others approach a coding problem, as I believe that understanding how people think and solve problems is fascinating. I am also excited to learn how to properly program and create projects that suit my present skills and interests, while enjoying the process of constant learning.
4) What do you want to contribute to or change about the tech industry?
I want to make the tech industry more inclusive. I want to make sure that everyone feels like they have a place. I also want younger students to feel like they have a place in the tech industry and I want to break down the barrier of younger people or marginalized groups connecting with passionate, skilled people in tech.
5) What’s your dream project?
I love biology and nanotech. After taking a computer science class last fall at the University of Minnesota through dual enrollment, I decided that I wanted to pursue programming as a tool for invention. I want to somehow combine those two interests with software engineering. I’m not sure exactly what this would look like right now, but I know that whatever I come up with, I will be super excited about it.
