Class of 2029: Amanda Chua, future video game designer and software engineer

Amanda Chua does it all.

She has the brain of a mathematician with the soul of an artist.

From excelling at math and science to writing poetry and creating music and artwork, Chua is showing us that numbers and logic can, in fact, go hand-in-hand with creativity and the arts.

A graduate of the Seton Home Study School, a nationally accredited Catholic distance school, Chua is a powerhouse student. She relished American literature courses and essay writing; she learned computer programming basics including Python; she excelled at Physics; she earned a jaw-dropping 1540 on the SAT, effectively scoring in the 99th percantile; and she graduated with a perfect 4.0 GPA (unweighted) from Seton’s most advanced academic program. She is also a National Merit Scholar.

Chua was deeply involved with a student-run forum called Seton Writers’ Club, through which students share creative writing pieces through blog posts and engage in writing contests. She eventually became the moderator of the club and later served as the club’s administrator, a position akin to that of president.

Through her work with the club, she managed the forum; edited and maintained the website; created contest themes and writing prompts; and helped troubleshoot technical issues for the website. Chua was also a member of Catholic Harbor, Seton’s official student forum. And as part of service for her church, she wrote and created videos about the lives of Catholic saints. The videos are displayed on the YouTube page of her home parish, Mary the Mother of the Church in Texas.

This fall, Chua begins FIU as a computer science major.

“Computer programming would be my dream career,” Chua says. “I want to have a job in software engineering.”

Her ultimate dream: “To design and program my own video game.”

And, she says FIU’s strong computer science program is exactly what’s going to help her achieve both dreams.