Growing up, I was always fascinated by computers and technology. As a child, I would play fisher price computer games on the family desktop, now considered ancient. At age 10, I was given my first desktop computer, where I listened to music, set up my own email and played online games. Then came my first phone, a pink LG chocolate. In middle school, I took an IT class and learned basic Microsoft office skills such as performing functions using Excel. However, I did not really understand how computers worked.

In high school, I worked at my school’s help desk, assisting students and teachers with technology issues they had with their iPads and laptops. Junior year, when I began to visit colleges, I had no idea what I wanted to study. When colleges asked what I was interested in, I said computers, but I was not sure if I wanted to spend four years learning about them. I had to decide if I wanted to go to a school where I’d be spending most of my time taking computer science classes or if I was interested in taking other classes such as languages and history classes. When I started visiting liberal arts schools, I was fascinated at the idea of being able to take classes outside my major and the fact that I would not have hundreds of students in my classes, rather around 20.

After hearing stories from students who studied computer science and were able to work closely with professors to complete fascinating research, I was sold on attending a liberal arts college. Throughout my freshman year at Bryn Mawr, I was able to take not only computer science classes but sociology and art history classes as well. I participated in events such as the Philly women in tech summit and visited google. Although I am ultimately planning on majoring in computer science, I hope to minor in another area, so that I can use the computer science skills I gained in conjunction with other academic fields.