UC SAN DIEGO COMPUter Science

Sophia Paz

SantA CLARA Web Design and Engineering

West Ranch senior Sophia Paz’s passion for engineering stemmed from a summer coding camp called Kode With Klossy that is focused on empowering young women in STEM. Paz plans to spend her next four years pursuing web design and engineering at Santa Clara University.

Paz ultimately decided on web design and engineering as she “found it appealing how [she] can build so many websites in any style through code.” Her favorite part of the subject is the final product after planning and building a website.

“Seeing everything that you have built and collaborating with a group of people who have the same goal is what I love about coding and engineering,” explained Paz.

A project Paz worked on was a website called (G)-STEM, which targets the gender gap in STEM and encourages young women to join computer science and engineering. Paz enjoys creating websites for social good and hopes to strengthen her skills in college so she can continue to build apps for people and communities.

When building websites, Paz takes inspiration from different portfolios and other software engineers. She admires their work and perseverance in the field. Seeing the work they have done has inspired Paz to pursue a career in the tech industry.

After college, she hopes to become a user experience and interface designer or a software engineer at a large tech company. To those wanting to pursue engineering, Paz advised, “Don’t think that engineering is just building and computer science is just coding. There is so much more to them, and you can create amazing things through code.”

Mathematics has always been West Ranch senior Chad Park’s favorite subject. Since he was young, Park enjoyed going to math class and taking on tough problems; he hopes to build upon his love for math by majoring in applied mathematics at UC Berkeley. Park aims to graduate with a degree in applied mathematics and then pursue data science in graduate school and later on in the workforce.

In Park’s case, the decision to major in the field of mathematics comes from a natural aptitude and understanding of the subject. “I really enjoy going to math class. I’ve always been good at math and it just came naturally to me compared to subjects like English and history. I also love data because I love statistics too,” Park explained.

“I think solving difficult questions is what interests me, and even though it might take a while, I like to think outside the box and that’s the challenge that math brings,” Park said of the reason he chose applied mathematics. For Park, every problem poses an enticing challenge, waiting to be solved.

More specifically, Park has found his calling in statistics, which he hopes to use in his future at UC Berkeley and in his endeavors as a data scientist. While discussing his future career, Park explained, “Some of the topics I want to tackle are climate change and deforestation because I do like hiking a lot. I love nature and I want to make sure we have nature for prosperity by projecting data for deforestation in order to raise awareness for climate change and the need to keep our earth alive.”

UC BERkELEY Applied mathematics