A fourth-year Computer Science student at UNBC has been nationally recognized for her work with the school’s Active Minds program.
Elizabeth Norman started as a Camp Coordinator in the program as a Summer job.
“It’s a youth outreach program for UNBC, it’s about getting kids excited about STEM fields, and getting them excited about UNBC as well,” Norman explained.
“We run Summer camps throughout the Summer, we’ve been doing them virtually a lot lately just because of COVID-19 and the lack of staffing.”
Recently, Norman travelled to Ottawa, where she received the Instructor Recognition Award from Actua, a national organization committed to fostering science, technology, engineering, and math education for youth.
“It’s really cool that I got this, I really enjoy working with kids, I mean it’s not what I want to do when I graduate, I want to go off and become a developer somewhere,” she said.
“But I’m really passionate about showing kids how to code, and I think I bring a great ‘A’ game to my job because it’s a great place to work. My bosses over the years have really supportive, and I get to work from home and I get to play with toys all day.”
Norman added there were two other winners of the award.
“This semester is going to be my last time working for active minds as I’ll be moving into a workforce that more aligns with what my degree is in,” she said.
“It feels really nice to kind of cap off three years of dedicated service by being shown that work was really recognized, and that I made an impact on kids.”
More information about the Active Minds program can be found here.