veronica cruz

I am a recent graduate of Notre Dame High School where I discovered my passion for computer science. In Fall 2021, I will begin attending the University of Maryland (UMD). I will be a Computer Science major and will also be pursuing a Technology Entrepreneurship minor. At the University of Maryland, I plan on being involved with Technica, the largest all women and nonbinary hackathon.

In the summer of 2020, I took part in a 6-week online program called the Summer STEM Institute. The bootcamp curriculum consisted of statistics, data analysis, and machine learning. Additionally, I took part in the research program in which I analyzed data from the Herschel PACS telescope. I modeled noise in the universe based on position using said data. All of this was done in Python using various libraries such as matplotlib, pandas, and numpy. I wrote a paper (using LaTeX) covering my findings which can be found here.

After witnessing firsthand the disastrous effects of COVID-19 pandemic on education, some colleagues from the Summer STEM Institute and I created a nonprofit organization called ProcrastiNote that provides free notes for high school courses along with other resources. These include productivity printables that I designed myself using Figma and a blog with advice for high schoolers with articles that I researched and wrote myself. I helped lead the team as Chief Administrator. Additionally, I designed and developed the website using WordPress. I was involved with ProcrastiNote from July 2020 until March 2021.

ProcrastiNote is fiscally sponsored by Hack Club Bank.

Since January 2019, I have been teaching myself Korean. I have taught myself using various online resources such as Talk to Me in Korean and Anki and paperback books that teach about reading, speaking/listening, vocabulary, and grammar. In the Fall of 2022, I am planning on studying abroad at Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea.

Since October 2020, I have been working as a freelance web developer and designer. I have created websites using WordPress for portfolios, weddings, and more (clients did not consent to having their websites publicized). This summer, I have been self studying HTML and CSS and built this website using those languages in order to practice my skills.