Meet Angela Bonsol

Long before Angela Bonsol was a Seidenberg Student, she grew up in the Philippines until the age of nine. She grew up speaking Tagalog and learned English at school. When Angela migrated to the United States, it was a while before she felt like she belonged. Now, she finds pride in her identity and abilities as someone who speaks three languages! (The third is Spanish).

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“Honestly, I love being trilingual,” Angela says. “I love learning about different languages. I try to pick up words from each language I encounter.”

When she first set foot on the Pace University campus, she knew that the Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems was for her. Her very first campus tour was when she discovered the magic of the Seidenberg community.

“The lounge, the people—I really felt like I belonged. The program looked really promising and had so many opportunities that I really felt like I could reach if I went here,” Angela said.

After four years of being a Seidenberg student, she explains that the best part of going to Pace is being part of the Seidenberg community. “We made so many memories there,” she says. “Just hanging out in the kitchen area with my friends, doing schoolwork together, chatting and playing games. It’s where I spent most of my time in Seidenberg.”

Angela also found her time as a student mentor to be a highlight of her experience. As a former mentee in the Seidenberg Peer Mentoring Program, she knew she wanted to help other students during their first year at the Seidenberg School.

“I just really love being there for people when they need it,” said Angela. “I joined to be a mentor because I like giving back.”

Those same leadership skills led her to the student organization Pace Women in Tech (WIT). Angela was a member of Pace WIT throughout all her years as a student and even became President in her senior year. During her time of leadership there, she hosted the first virtual Sunflower Hack and started a partnership with the Pace Smash Society and Pace eSports to host all-women and nonbinary Smash tournaments—she hopes it will continue for years to come.

“I am definitely proud of all the things I have done for Pace Women in Tech. It is such a great feeling to be part of such an organization,” Angela said. “Everything in that organization I feel proud of.”

The experience Angela gained election board of Pace WIT and as a student mentor, as well as her growing skills in computer science, helped her land an internship doing data analysis at Cambrian Analytics. Her ability to speak multiple languages was a huge boon – her job was to analyze social media posts written in Tagalog and present her findings. The internship cemented Angela’s passion for data analysis.

While Angela was one of the only female interns there, she explained that simply being a woman in the technology industry is empowering for her.

“I knew, growing up, if there was one thing, I was sure of that I wanted to do in the future, it was to make a change in the world,” Angela says. “Being a woman in tech makes me feel like I am already part of a change.”

As far as her academic career goes, she also notes that Math Structures, Data Structures, and Computer Organization were classes that engaged her the most. However, she explains that her favorite course that she took during her Seidenberg career was Introduction to Game Programming with Professor Carmine Guida.

“It was great because I was learning, but I was also having a lot of fun,” Angela said. “I just genuinely enjoyed it to the point that sometimes it did not feel like schoolwork, you know?”

We’re sending Angela a huge congrats for graduating May 2021 with a BS in Computer Science. We can’t wait to see how she changes the world for the better.