Growing up Shannon developed a love for knowledge and math from her Dad, a software engineer, but it wasn’t until taking her first Computer Science class in high school that she really fell in love with coding. Now in college Shannon has delved into these passions through serving as the president of Women in Computer Science, developing projects on Tech Team in SWE, mentoring other women students through Lean-In, and more! Additionally, Shannon utilized the things she learns in class through working as a student consultant for the Security & Privacy office on campus. She says, “I love working there because the people are so nice and supportive, and the work is really interesting!” During this past summer Shannon worked for Bank of America in their Global Information Security division. During this internship, she and the other interns competed in teams to see who could create the best product for the insider threat team in the company. Shannon told us that this was her favorite part of the whole summer because she learned a lot and her team won second place.
To her fellow students Shannon says, “Believe in yourself, and never let failure stop you. I wasn’t sure if I was cut out for [Computer Science], but through the help of mentors and friends I found at UIUC, I’ve learned that anything (including CS!) is possible with dedication.”