Welcome to my freshman year

This was a time full of wide eyed excitement. Excitement that I was at my dream school. Excitement that I was living away from home. Excitement that I was making new friends. Excitement that I was joining new communities. Excitement that I was changing. My freshman year was full of excitement.

My freshman year was also the year that the COVID-19 pandemic began. At the end of my Winter Quarter 2020, my classmates and I were abruptly sent home to quarentine and take all of our classes remotely.

Personal life

Sunday Study Sessions

My goal was to make a bunch of new friends my freshman year, and I succeeded. Within the first few weeks of college, I had established a solid friend group of new and childhood friends that I met up with throughout the week to hangout with, go to church with, and study with. A lot of us attended the same church, so we usually happened to study together in really unproductive, but social study sessions most Sunday evenings.

Track Stars

During Spring 2020 of pandemic, a few of my girl friends from my church and I began FaceTiming a bunch to kill the time, and got much closer as a result. We talked about everything from friendship to school to Christianity to love to life to church and more. Since this was a time that many of us were trapped indoors, we challenged each other to focus on our health, and completed multiple walking challenges. We used the Nike Run App to see who could walk or run the most in one week incriments. At the end of each challenge, the people at the top of the leaderboard had walked upwards of 40 miles, and most of us had begun walking multiple miles a day to keep up.

Academic life

I took a bunch of random classes to fulfill my general education requirements, but I was determined to major in Informatics, so I also took a bunch of prerequisites to apply to the major. My Informatics prerequisites were some of the hardest classes I've had to take in my scholastic journey.

Technical Foundations of Informatics (INFO 201)

This was the first time I had ever coded in my life, and needless to say, I struggled! Although at the time, this was the most challenging course I had ever taken, I learned the importance of asking for help. Through starting on assignments early, collaborating with my peers, and attending office hours, I was able to end with a 3.5 grade in an extremely challenging course.

Interdisciplinary Honors Program

After my first few quarters at UW, I received email recognition of my Dean's List status and invitation to apply to the Interdisciplinary Honors Program. I was super flattered, looked more into the program and found that it'd be a great fit. I applied in Spring 2020, and got accepted that same quarter as a second-year admit to the Interdisciplinary Honors Program!

Professional life

United Negro College Fund Portfolio Project

This was my first time mentoring. I've benefitted tremendously from mentorship programs, and this was my opportunity to pay it forward with the knowledge I had accumilated. For 11 weeks, I mentored 3 Black high school students and supported them as they built their college portfolio. I met them every Saturday from 12pm-3pm and assisted them with their personal statements, college applications, resumes, and more.