By Nick Holden
This spring, over 300 alumni of OEOP’s programs graduated high school and accepted admission to top universities across the country. Ellen Yuan and Terrence Burkhalter, both of the MIT Online Science, Technology and Engineering Community (MOSTEC) class of 2012, are among the many of those rising freshmen who will be embarking on one more exciting academic journey before they enter college. Along with fellow MOSTEC ’12 alum Ikechi Akujobi, Ellen and Terrence will participate in the three-week Google Computer Science Summer Institute (CSSI) at Google’s Global Headquarters in Mountain View, CA.
Ellen Yuan, of Durham, North Carolina, will make her first trip to California to participate in CSSI. While participating in a MOSTEC workshop at Google’s Cambridge office in which she developed an Android application, Ellen saw the passion that Google employees put into their work. “I could really tell that they enjoyed what they did,” Ellen says. She plans to major in statistics when she enrolls at Duke University in the fall. Through CSSI, she hopes to learn more about the intersection of statistics and computer science.
Terrence Burkhalter had few options for computer courses at his small high school in rural Minnesota. “It was pretty much just learning about Microsoft Office applications,” Terrence says. While he enters CSSI with little computer science experience, activities such as First Robotics and the MOSTEC Google workshop have ignited his desire to learn more. “Through CSSI, I hope to get a good introduction to computer science and find out that I like it,” he says. Terrence will attend the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities where he plans to study physics, and he is considering adding computer science as a second major.
Ellen Yuan, MOSTEC ’12
Terrence Burkhalter, MOSTEC ’12