I grew up in Rowland Heights, California, a suburb on the edge of Los Angeles and Orange County. I went to an all-girls’ Catholic private school in Alhambra (fun fact: my graduating class was only 65 people). During the summer after my freshman year in HS, I went to a medical conference in Berkeley where I stayed for 11 days. I fell in love with the campus and environment during that experience. Every summer after, I came up to visit the campus and family. Fortunately, I was able to get into my dream school and now I’m here!
The majority of my coding experience has been through CS10 and CS61A so Snap! and Python. I’ve also worked with Java, HTML, and LabVIEW in high school.
Besides snacking and watching reality TV, I love traveling around to try different foods.
Does being able to finish a whole bag of Hot Cheetos in one sitting count?
One of my fondest memories was leading my high school robotics team. During my senior year, we were able to reach the semi-finals of the regional competition, which was a record for my 11-year old robotics team. We were also able to go to the National Championship in St. Louis, which was something many of us never imagined we could do. To me, it was an amazing thing because we were an all-girls’ team that was often looked down upon and underestimated. Leading a group of amazing women was definitely an honor and one of the most remarkable things I’ve done so far.
I also met Drake Bell at Disneyland once.
I’m currently taking IB 132/L and IB 140. On top of that, I’ll be shadowing a physician and doing research at the Gopnik Cognitive Development lab where I see how kids between ages 3-6 learn and revise a higher-order hypothesis. Most of my time, though, is dedicated to facilitating BEAM, a DeCal/club on campus that goes to elementary and middle schools every week for STEM outreach.