Senior, Julissa Pacheco, has earned an Amazon future engineer scholarship and will receive $40,000 over four years to pursue a degree in computer science at any college she chooses. Julissa is one of the 250 students around the world to receive this amazing reward as well as a paid internship offer at Amazon after her first year of college. This is an amazing accomplishment, and ACP is so proud of Julissa. I interviewed her about the scholarship and this is what she shared with us.

Q: What made you want to submit an application for the Amazon future engineer scholarship?

A: Ever since I started getting interested in engineering, it made me want to continue to pursue it after high school. Also, college is expensive, and it is a pretty big scholarship, so it will give me opportunities and connections that I can use for future careers.

Q: What do you hope to gain with your internship with Amazon? How do you think your current skills will develop with the experiences you’ll go through at the internship and in college? 

A: It will be mostly just experience and hands-on involvement because in a class, all the situations given are just hypothetical scenarios. The difference is that everything will be real with my internship, and some of my code or ideas could be put into products that people will use.

Q: What do you look forward to most in the internship? What specific skill would you like to learn or expand?

A: I’m looking forward to meeting more people that share common interests for our future careers and who come from similar backgrounds as me.

Q: Are you looking forward to graduating? What were some memorable moments from this school year? What are the biggest takeaways from your high school experience?

A: I’m really looking forward to graduating, but I’m also really nervous because it’s like an end of an era. I’ve been here since 7th grade, so I’ve spent six years here so I’m very scared. From this year I really like going to events like dances because it gives you a break from all the studying.

Q: What do you enjoy doing outside of school? How do you think your hobbies impacted you as a person?

A: Outside of school I like to embroider, and I really like to code. I feel like working has definitely given me insight into how it’ll be when I’m older.

Great Job, Julissa! You are such an outstanding student and set a wonderful example to everyone, showing that you can do whatever you put your mind to.