In honor of International Women’s Day we would like to feature a few of the exceptional young women who are currently participating in our Pre-Apprenticeship program.
Meet Christy Ly Nguyen, a high school senior who will graduate this June. Christy was raised by immigrant parents who came here as Vietnam War refugees. Her parents had to struggle to establish themselves here – they lacked English skills and a college education, but her mother was a great cook so they opened a Vietnamese restaurant in Rainier Beach. All went well for a few years until there was an incident when an underinsured driver drove through the front of their restaurant, and they ended up having to close their business for good. Both parents still work in the restaurant industry and Christy admires their resilience, doing their best and working hard to support Christy and her older sister in the face of many challenges.
Early on in high school Christy realized that computer science can help solve some of the issues challenging our society today. For example, she believes that education technology can be beneficial in helping to solve the problem of overcrowded classrooms in underfunded schools. EdTech programs can help students learn better, and while they are working through online exercises or tutorials, teachers can focus on students who may need individual help. Christy’s thinking about this motivated her to tune in to individual student needs; she volunteered for a youth tutoring program online to help elementary students overcome barriers to reading. She has a passion to be a voice in her community for underrepresented and marginalized communities and wants to help in any way she can.
Christy was inspired to take a computer class her junior year and found that she really enjoyed problem-solving and debugging. She finds it satisfying to write code, even for something as small as a random dice game, because there are so many things you can imagine and create with programming.
Christy has applied to the University of Washington, University of Southern California, and Rice University to major in Computer Science. She is excited to be applying to the Microsoft Discover internship this summer.