Jessica Nguyen: A Break Through Tech scholarship leads from a movie club to a dream internship with Disney

Jessica’s first involvement with Break Through Tech came when she applied for a scholarship to attend the 2023 Grace Hopper Conference in Orlando, FL. At the time, Jessica had just started a tech club, Movies and Machine Learning, at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA, where she is studying Computational Data Science, and the conference was an opportunity to surround herself with like-minded people and understand how women deal with sometimes feeling unseen within the tech community. “There was no way I could have afforded the trip on my own,” says Jessica, “so I’m grateful to Break Through Tech for allowing me to share the experience.”

The conference turned out to be more valuable than she imagined. It was also an opportunity to meet face-to-face with some major corporations. From there, she received internship offers from Wells Fargo and Disney and she’s excited to report that she’ll be joining Disney in the summer of 2024. “Never would I have thought I’d be able to fly to Orlando, Florida during an academic year, let alone receive an offer from not one but two companies that I greatly admired!” says Jessica.

“Your definition of success will always be derived from hard work, persistence, and a little bit of luck.”

Jessica’s experiences with Break Through Tech and the Grace Hopper Conference have convinced her that you don’t need to attend an Ivy League school or have the perfect resume to find opportunities. “Your definition of success will always be derived from hard work, persistence, and a little bit of luck,” says Jessica. “Break Through Tech has given me the confidence to dream as big as I can.”

Jessica also spent time in Orlando exploring the city and getting to know her fellow students in the Break Through Tech cohort. “It’s when I truly realized how different someone’s life story can be to yours, and how important it is to remember to be compassionate,” says Jessica.