Jocelyn Collado

Jocelyn Collado

Jocelyn Collado was born and raised in Mexico, and moved to the United States her junior year of high school. Discovering an interest in computer science, she researched colleges and found Wright College’s Engineering Pathway.

“From the moment I started classes I realized that the staff really cared about students’ success.”

Knowing she wanted to get involved in her community and get other students interested in engineering, she joined the IT club, co-founded both the Wright College chapter of the Society for Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE ) and the Math Club, and helped bring the Society of Women Engineers to Wright.

Through the college, she was also able to intern at Argonne National Laboratory and continue working for them remotely while pursuing her Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She also participated in Google’s summer online coding apprenticeship (CodeU), a 12-week invitation onlyvirtual coding program. On top of that, Jocelyn was named a Women Techmaker Scholar, which is a scholarship that recognizes women in technology who are passionate for the field as well as their community. As part of this award and the apprenticeship, she was able to spend time at Google Headquarters attending workshops and getting to know the company and other Google Scholars.

“It was truly motivational to interact with other scholars as I ran into other people that were just as passionate about their communities as I was, and we all wanted to make a difference in the world regardless of our background.”

Jocelyn plans on completing her engineering degree by December 2020, and is currently considering completing a master’s program at UIUC as well. No matter what, she says she will keep doing outreach activities to inspire others to pursue a degree in STEM, following the words of mentor and Wright professor Dr. Doris Espiritu to “pay it forward.”