I quickly embraced a leadership role in the newly created Mentors for Aspiring Girls in Computing (MAGIC) class and helped cofound the organization, in which a team of fellow computer science majors and I travel to middle and high schools throughout Indiana to mentor young women who are interested in computer science. I currently spend upwards of 6 hours per week mentoring the students, many of whom have no prior programming experience. Some activities include using MIT Scratch Programming and MIT AppInventor, writing medium-sized applications in Java and Python, teaching computer graphics with Open Processing, game development, etc. We also incorporate units about artificial intelligence, computer security, and computer hardware.
As captain of the West Lafayette team, I am in charge of creating lesson plans for a class of 7th-10th grade students, which entails coming up with challenging coding problems, writing the code for the solutions to the problems, and testing and debugging the code. Additionally, I have dedicated numerous hours organizing and leading team meetings, taking girls on field trips to tech companies such as Salesforce, and of course, mentoring at 2-3 different schools every week. I'm proud to have put in over 250 hours since my freshman year, and I truly enjoy the time I spend teaching tech skills to young women.
My mentoring organization (MAGIC) recently received a grant from Google for our dedication to making a difference in Computer Science. The grant will go toward purchasing new hardware (Raspberry Pis, Astro Pis, Breadboards and associated circuitry equipment, Jewelbots) as well as any necessary software or other curriculm resources. In addition to the grant, every member of our organization was selected to be a member of Google's exclusive IgniteCS organization. This link to the IgniteCS Initiative page provides more details.
After attending several hackathons throughout my freshman year, a group of students and I came up with the idea to host a hackathon at Purdue for middle and high school students. Given the lack of computer science classes in most schools, we believed a hackathon would help students develop the skills they need to succeed in technical careers, and would give them the opportunity to work directly with computer science and engineering majors.
I served as a mentor for the first "Boilercode" event in 2015 and worked one-on-one with a high school junior, leading her to develop 4 small Android applications despite little prior experience. Furthermore I helped other students who needed guidance, as approximetly 30 students attended. I returned in 2016 as a mentor and the number of students in attendance doubled.
Co-Captain of nationally-recognized, 150+ member speech and debate team (2013 - 2014)
Captain of Lincoln Douglas Debate team (2012 - 2014)
National Qualifier in Lincoln Douglas Debate (2013)
Led debate team to state championship (2011, 2012, 2014)
State semifinalist in Congressional Debate (2011)
National Forensics League Rank of Superior Distinction
Virtual Varsity is an extensive debate training program I created for a nationally-competitive debate team. Along with critiquing the philosophical theories of Kant, Locke, Aristotle, Plato, Rawls, and other philosophers, Virtual Varsity teaches in-depth research, critical analysis, case writing, persuasive argumentation, and advanced stategy skills utilizing PowerPoint presentations, handouts, and classroom simulations.
As President, I led fundraisers to support the foreign exchange program for German and U.S. students. I organized team meetings and events including a foreign language picnic with 100+ students from Spanish, French, and Japanese clubs. Additionally, I arranged a visit to Chicago's Christkindlmarket to learn about German culture.
In 2014, I was the sole recipient of the German Department Award.
Throughout my high school career, I volunteered on Thursdays at a local soup kitchen for members of my community.