When Oyenubi transferred into computer science during his sophomore year, he said he searched for peers to help him navigate the field, leading him to join ABCS, a place where he could meet students with similar experiences. In addition to finding community in Seattle through the APP internship, Duncan said he found a place within UT’s computer science department at the Association of Black Computer Scientists, where he serves as the corporate officer alongside organization president Gbemiga Oyenubi, a computer science senior.

Being able to see other Black computer scientists and interact with them gave me a sense of security (and) community.” (When I get there,) I see a bunch of other Black interns. “I got this offer, and all of a sudden, I am flying to Seattle. “It was a really nice surprise,” Duncan said. After getting rejected from a general software development engineering internship position, he received an offer from APP, which actively seeks to hire students in underrepresented groups, including but not limited to Black, Latinx and Native American applicants. Duncan said he would not have had an Amazon internship without it.

Programs like APP work to combat the inequities found in STEM fields. Despite representing 11% of all employed adults in the United States, Black people make up 9% of all STEM jobs, 7% of computing jobs and 5% of engineering jobs, according to the Pew Research Center. The underrepresentation of Black people in UT’s undergraduate computer science program reflects a broader inequity within the professional STEM industry in the United States. “(In my first year), I didn’t see any other Black students in my classes, especially not in computer science classes,” Duncan said. At UT, Black students make up 2.77% percent of all undergraduate computer science majors, according to the UT-Austin computer science department. Just over 7% of Seattle’s population is Black, according to the U.S. However, Duncan said he found a similarity between living in Seattle and majoring in computer science - a lack of Black representation. After his freshman year of college, Duncan flew to Seattle to work as a software development engineer intern under the Amazon Propel Program, returning to campus after a summer of putting his passions to action. “I learned how to program and code, (then) managed to make my first game.”ĭuncan said he took his interests in programming and coding well beyond middle school. “I was like, ‘Let me learn how to actually make the game,’” the computer science sophomore said. Aaron Boehmer, Senior Life and Arts ReporterĪ preteen Kylan Duncan sits at his computer, bored of playing Roblox and looking for challenging ways to pique his interest in problem-solving.

Pew research center internship