Alexa Nanevicz is grateful she was rejected from the Gunn Robotics Team in junior year — in fact, it helped her further pursue engineering, a passion she will continue to explore at the University of Arizona next fall.
“I was not meant for that,” Nanevicz laughs. “I’m doing my own hardware stuff for my computer science project anyway!”
What Nanevicz found most contributive to her passion for computer and electrical engineering was the coursework she took at Gunn, largely infuenced by her teachers’ mentorship and passion.
“I haven’t taken an engineering class at Gunn, but I know that engineering pulls many different sciences together in a way that I fnd interesting,” she said. “AP Physics 1 — shoutout to Ms. Norberg — was my favorite class I’ve ever taken at Gunn. That defnite- ly put me on the track of almost choosing to major in physics. But I enjoyed my CS classes, like Functional and Object-Oriented Programming and AP Computer Science.”
Nanevicz isn’t only excited for the high-caliber engineering program at University of Arizona — she’s also excited about the cacti.
“The second I got off the airplane (while I was visiting), I was like, ‘What the hell, these cacti are real?’” she said. “The whole place was gorgeous, and the people were very friendly.”
Making the decision to attend the University of Arizona wasn’t something Nanevicz expected, though.
“I realized that it doesn’t matter, the acceptance rate or ‘prestigiousness’ of the school,” she said. “Their engineering program is really good, and you don’t have to go to the best school ever to get a good education.”
Intending to join a sorority wasn’t something that Nanevicz expected, either, but her visit to the campus helped her realize how important it was to her to socialize with fellow women in STEM.
“The engineering program is small, and there’s not a lot of women, so I think (joining a sorority) will be good for study groups and fnding people who I can relate to the most,” she said.
