Trinity Alum Empowers Computer Science Students

When Pauline Lake was hired for a summer internship after her freshman year at Trinity College, she was just hoping to learn how to design mobile apps with the bonus of on-campus housing. The internship offered a lot more.

She added computer science to her educational studies major and, after graduation, became a teaching consultant for Trinity’s Mobile Computer Science Principles (CSP) project, a course that introduces high school students to computer science fundamentals by building socially useful mobile apps.

“Learning how to design an app that can solve a real problem in their communities empowers students to know they can make a difference,” says Pauline. “Not everyone who takes the course will become a programmer or computer scientist, but they’ll have skills that can be applied in any field.”

With funding from the National Science Foundation and an endorsement by the College Board, Mobile CSP is a certified advanced placement course with more than 300 teachers trained to deliver the curriculum. This year, more than 15,000 students nationwide will be able to take the course. In addition to curriculum development and program coordination for Mobile CSP, Pauline started Mobile Apps for Hartford, an internship program for students who completed the course and want to explore their interest further. This fall she begins a master’s in public policy program at Trinity, with an education policy concentration.

“That internship years ago at Trinity was a red carpet to a lot of opportunities,” says Pauline. “I thought I wanted to be a teacher, but in the past few years I’ve realized there’s so much room in this field to be a leader outside of the classroom and still influence students.”