Senior Jake Garza Seymour is Gulliver Prep’s Silver Knight nominee in the area of General Scholarship.
Seymour has been in the Gulliver computer science program since middle school and is a Co-Founder of a non-profit called Career Ready Coding.
“The non-profit focuses on computer science literacy,” he says. “We are targeting students from under-served areas who are passionate about computer science but lack the resources to pursue that interest.”
The organization combines online and in-person instruction.
“Designing the online platform over the summer of sophomore year took the team more than 500 hours,” he says.
The website consists of student developed curriculum that is used for the online and in-person sessions.
“The purpose of the website – crcoding.org – is to increase our reach beyond South Florida,” he says.
The courses are developed to conform with Florida education standards in STEM.
In a reference letter, Computer Science teacher Dean Morrell praised the program.
“To date, CR Coding has helped more than 3,000 students in distressed areas of Miami learn the basics of coding,” Morrell says. “The platform has been adopted by CARE Elementary School and the Homestead Migrant Program, which serves the needs of many talented scholars, as well as Breakthrough Miami.”
Breakthrough Miami is an outreach program hosted at Gulliver.
The team also teaches a Coding Fundamental course required for all incoming Gulliver freshmen.
“Not only do we develop our curriculum and instruct, but we track the progress of each of our students by keeping a record of metrics.” he says.
The CR Coding team has won awards and invitations to prestigious events.
“Our web-app was the winner of the 2019 FL-27 District Congressional App Challenge,” he says.
As winners of the app challenge, six core members of CR Coding were invited to the #HouseofCode event at Capitol Hill to present the web-app to members of Congress in April. More than a hundred members of Congress attended.
The team has also presented alongside undergraduates at both Yale and Harvard’s CS50 Computer Science Fairs. Over the three years, they have reached more than 3,000 students.
Jake has received an acceptance to Yale University.
He plans to major in Global Affairs and East Asian Studies.
“I hope to work abroad for a transnational corporation” he says.
He’s proficient in Chinese and Spanish and completed an internship with Jin Mao Partners in Shanghai last summer.
“I lived in China for two months,” he says. “It was one of the most impactful learning experiences of my life.”
He was also selected to participate in Yale’s Young Global Scholar Program in Beijing that same summer. He attended lectures and took classes on Asia in the Twenty-First Century.
He published an article in the Gulliver Preparatory Social Sciences Journal titled Globalizing China: The Middle Kingdom’s Journey to the Center Stage.
Seymour hosted the Chinese State Competition last year.
“I’ve been studying Mandarin Chinese for five years,” He says.
He is an officer of the Zeta Omicron Honor Society, President of the Chinese Honor Society and Club, and former vice president of Mu Alpha Theta. He has participated on the Model United Nations Team for four years.
He competes as captain of multiple Gulliver academic teams including the Gulliver Geography team, which has won the local competition several times. He’s also attended the Geography & History National Bee & Olympiad.
He qualified for the International Geography Bee World Competition and placed 2nd in Southern Florida U.S. History Bee.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
