Guest Contributor
When Janice Kim began her time at Penn, her goal was to become a software engineer. That didn’t exactly go according to plan.
Kim, from Dallas, Texas, was used to being the student in high school who would volunteer to design robotics team T-shirts—not as a career move, but just as “the designated person,” as she puts it. So, when given the choice in her first year at Penn, she opted to take a design class, Art, Design, and Digital Culture, and was surprised by how much she loved it.
She declared a minor, finished the minor requirements in a year, and decided the logical next step was a dual degree. She’s now set to graduate this month as the first Penn student to have a dual degree in computer science in the School of Engineering and Applied Science and design in the College of Arts and Sciences.
“I slowly got into design more and more, and the different practices, and now I’ve completely switched from an engineer who designs, to a designer who codes,” she laughs. “It’s kind of a big reverse.”
The transition wasn’t seamless or without challenges: She took on six courses each semester to finish in four years, was careful about balancing her curriculums, and worked extra hard to ensure her engineering skills were up to date and “not getting rusty as I went further into design, too,” she says.
This story was written by Brandon Baker. To read the full article, please visit Penn Today.