Daleah Sampler is the youngest of five children, all of whom attended City Colleges. Her older siblings all studied health care, but Daleah decided to change it up and study IT. In May 2018, she earned her Associate of Applied Science in Web Development from Daley College and a month later celebrates her graduation from CPS’s Sarah E. Goode STEM Academy thanks to the Early College program.

And thanks to Goode’s partnership with IBM, Daleah was able to land a summer internship two years in a row – now she’s applying for full-time positions with the company. Interested in getting a few years of work experience before she gets her bachelor’s degree, she hopes that some hands-on experience will help her decide what she wants to study.

She is enthusiastic about her experience taking classes at Daley, noting that she had to get used to having more freedom than in her high school classes. She’s already ahead of the game and ahead of many of her peers, earning her associate degree for free and saving her parents tens of thousands of dollars in the process.

Update: Daleah has been hired by IBM in a full-time Deskside Technical Support position. Congratulations, Daleah!