Corporate
Alumni Michelle Duong: Solve for Tomorrow Lit In Me a Fire for Giving Back
6/21/2023
Name: | Michelle Duong |
Today: | Making a career pivot to pursue a degree as a Physician’s Assistant |
Plans for Tomorrow: | “Get closer to the people I’m helping” – an aspiration Michelle developed during the course of her Samsung Solve for Tomorrow experience |
Ties to Samsung Solve for Tomorrow: | As a High School sophomore at Eastside San Jose’s Downtown College Preparatory School, Michelle was a 2014/2015 Solve for Tomorrow National Winner, part of Downtown’s student team that developed a “grey water” recovery system for residential home use. Four and five years later, during Solve for Tomorrow Years 11and 12 (2019/2020 and 2020/2021), Michelle returned as an Alumni mentor – helping teams prepare for their final pitch presentations. She describes that role as “Awesome – being on the other side of the table and sharing with students my own experiences with the competition and life after the big day.” |
What was your path from Samsung Solve for Tomorrow STEM competition winner to where you are today?
I really started on that path before formally entering Samsung Solve for Tomorrow. Our Engineering and Math teacher Mr. Ruelas proposed entering the competition in spite of the doubts our class had about being capable of competing at that national level. As students who didn’t have a lot of resources, we learned to be resourceful with what we had when building our project. And it inspired the confidence that each of us was indeed capable, believing that “I can and I WILL” succeed. Solve for Tomorrow opened so many doors for me. It really changed how I thought about things after the competition had ended.
I know that if not for that chance I took, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I didn’t have a lot of role models in the community growing up and Solve for Tomorrow introduced me to so many successful people who were so supportive. After high school and starting college, there was a period when I felt a little lost with school and life. But thanks to the Solve for Tomorrow experience and the introduction to the world of STEM, I was able to focus my “I can and I WILL” confidence to study cardio science and health tech in college, to graduate and secure a position as a User Experience (UX) researcher and designer for the non-profit UNICEF. There, I was able to live the dream of helping people by taking user input to develop solutions that improved their interactions with health services and products.