I am student currently pursuing a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, and hopefully a Master's degree un Computer Engineering. The reason I chose this major was not because I had this innate passion since I was kid, but I rather got into computer science in junior year of high school. Against my wishes, my mom made me attend a technical high school where you can take part in a technical program that teaches you how to perform a certain trade in two years. It was a lot of pressure to possibly pick your future career path at 16 and have to spend the next two years studying it. I definitely did not go straight towards tech., I did a process of elimination and the tolerable options included cooking, electrical wiring, and computer programming. However, from a brief discussion with my mom where she informed me that I would die if I worked with electrical wiring, because I am so clumsy, and that there is no future in cooking, computer programming was left. I begrudgingly attended the classes, and began to enjoy it to my surprise. I found that I enjoy programming and all the problem solving involved. I got such a rush whenever I was able to solve a coding challenge on my own. However, it was not easy, for the first year or so I was frustrated because I was not grasping the more complex topics that everyone else seemed to understand. At the start of senior year though, I do not know what happened but something clicked in my mind and I started understanding completely what was happening in class. Perhaps it was a year of listening to my professor repeat the same things over and over again, but finally being able to connect the dots. When that happened, I was over the moon because that was when I really started to enjoy the class and decided that my career path would be in computer science. I do not regret it, especially after seeing all the possible options in IT and the ever changing nature of the field, which means there will always be something new to learn and do.

My interest in programming started in high school because I was part of a Software and Database Programming technical program where we learned loads of different programming languages and created many projects. One project I was really proud of was my very last senior year project. For those who are unfamiliar, SQL stands for Structured Query Language and it is the programming language used to build relational databases. I know, I thought it was extremely boring at first too, until my teacher had us use SQL for our final project. Our senior year project was to build a database with SQL. I could have chosen one of the easier projects, but I really wanted to challenge myself because after all we had been excruciatingly learning SQL for months and I wanted to put my skills to the test. I chose to create a hospital database, which consisted of creating all the tables, along with the primary and foreign keys, creating sequences, inserting data into all the tables, creating views, and synonyms. The part that makes me the most proud about this project is the fact that I was able to solve my biggest challenge on my own. One of the requirements for one of the tables was that depending on what type of visit you are making, you only have to enter certain information, and rest you have to leave blank. However, because there is no user interface, the challenge was in figuring out how to prevent users from typing in certain information, when they are a certain type of patient. I was stuck on this problem for weeks and my teacher did not know how to help me either. Not only did he not know how to help me, but said that either way, I would get points off if I do not figure it out. Until one day I remembered a feature of SQL is using a CHECK statement, which checks if certain information is true or false. From there, I used NULL and NOT NULL statements to make the columns able to or not able to enter information into. It was such a rush of excitement, until I remembered I had a lot to do. After I solved this huge issue, I spent days still perfecting my program. I was determined not to finish until it was perfect and I did it, I finished it. I had never worked so hard on a project in my life, it was not easy and took weeks to complete. However, it made me feel like I definitely can do anything I set my mind to. I am still a student in the field, but working in technology inspires me to believe that, as I mentioned before, I can accomplish whatever it is I set my mind to do. The whole tech. industry is build around innovation and creating things that could have never been imagined years ago. I love this aspect of it, that there is always something new on the horizon and it is ever changing. I do not know specifically what I want to do for my career yet, but this aspect of working in tech. drew me to it.

My name is Carolina Campos, I am 19 years old, and I am pursuing a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and hopefully a Master's degree in Computer Engineering afterwards. I am Latina, both my parents came from Brazil at an early age to build their dream future here in America. Since they have accomplished what most see as impossible and are living their dreams in America, I am now able to pursue mines. My dream future consists of graduating from university, getting a great career, starting a family, and being able to give my parents everything they've never been able to have. It seems pretty standard, but let me dive in a bit more. Like I said before, I am currently going to university for computer science, and this is the first step in building my dream future. Honestly, if there were a more concrete way to pursue a career in Computer Science without getting a degree, I would have chosen that in a heartbeat. However, since there is not, pursuing a degree is my best bet. My ideal career would be in IT/Computer Science, however since the field is so broad and ever expanding, I cannot pinpoint one aspect specifically. However, one of the goals I want to achieve is to work for NASA. To some, working for Google, Amazon, or Apple is the peak, to me, working at NASA has been one of my on-again, off-again dreams since I was a kid. My ideal future also consists of helping out my parents as much as I can. It is only because of them pushing me to be the best, that I could ever have gotten on the path I am now to my dream future. This includes buying them a house and paying off all their debts. I think the only thing standing in the way of me building my dream future is myself. I firmly believe that if I set my mind to something, I can do it. However, the only way to do that is to stay motivated and focused, which so far has been a challenge. The only way to remove these mental blocks is though encouragement from friends and family, and reassuring myself that everything I am doing isn't for nothing, but rather stepping closer to my dream future because it is easy to forget sometimes of your end goal. As long as I do not give up, my dream future isn't going to stay a dream, but turn in to my reality.