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Francesca Ansell
Francesca Ansell

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An introduction to Francesca

Hi everyone my name is Francesca Ansell. I am a junior studying Human-Centered Design and Development and Health Policy Administration. I graduated from High School in 2019 from Knoch Highschool north of Pittsburgh. I am involved in a research project with Professor Steven Haynes and am a Learning Assistant for the College of IST. Outside of the professional environment, I am involved in Serve state, which is a club based around volunteering in the state college community, and UXPA a section of a professional UX organization.

I am a strong mental health advocate who cares about people. These real issues can greatly affect people's lives and the fact that it is a taboo topic does not help them. My greatest passion lies in helping other people or making their lives easier. People tend to feel like the world has gone downhill and there are no more good people in the word, I try to prove to everyone I meet that is untrue through my positive actions. I hope that designing interfaces for those in the healthcare industry will be my way to do that. If I was not so squeamish I probably would become a nurse, but it turns out I am much better with computers than people.

In addition, I also enjoy adoration for girls to get involved in STEM fields. I believe more can still be done to assure that bright women have a spot in these fields. A feeling a belonging is very hard to find when the opposite sex does not see you as their equal. Personally, it makes me work that much harder to prove I deserve the spot I am given. Imposter syndrome is so rampant in the technology industry it's important to remember you deserve to be where you are at because of the work you have done. Later in my career, I hope to get involved in recruiting girls into the STEM field.

I have known I wanted to pursue a career in the technology field since my freshman year in high school when I took an introductory coding course. In that course, I learned Scratch and basic... very very basic... HTML. From there I went on to take two more coding classes during highschool including java and python. Throughout high school, I was extremely interested in problem-solving but had not discovered my desire to be in the health industry. I started college as a computer science major, which was definitely a mistake. The HCDD major in the college of ist aligns with my career goals much more than computer science did. During my freshman year in college, I took a general education class called health care for the consumer which opened my eyes to the flaws of America's health care system.

In the HCDD major, I have found my true passion in user experience/user interface design (UX/UI). After finishing the spring 2021 semester I will begin my internship at Merck & co. in their technology division.

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