HSCC Testimonial: Brandee Lyles (Columbus, 2010)

BDPA Education and Technology Foundation (BETF) strives to share testimonials from any of the students who participated in the 2010 national High School Computer Competition (HSCC) championship held in Philadelphia.

Today, our HSCC alumni testimonial is from Brandee Lyles, a young lady currently completing her senior year at Licking Heights High School. Brandee was a member of the national HSCC team trained by our BDPA Columbus chapter. Here are her thoughts on the experience:

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I truly enjoyed myself at the BDPA conference. To be honest at first I didn’t think I would have liked being there. I thought that it would be boring, just all work and no fun. In the end the whole trip turned out to be successful, even though I had to leave early, the time I spent there was very beneficial.

All the activities worked my brain and kept me on edge the whole time. I always looked forward to what was next, other than the long boring speeches. It was nice to be around other children that you could relate to and had somewhat similar interests. Most of the adults there were nice and helpful.

I believe the best part of the trip was the people I was around, my teammates (see above photo) and chaperons. I felt comfortable with all of them, all the laughs during dinner (we were dead during breakfast), the frustrations of trying to figure out why the code wasn’t working, even the staying up late then struggling to get up early in the morning. Plus who could complain about free meals? Overall I think my team and I worked very well together and I am looking forward to doing the program again.