Mandy Yao, Health Sciences to Electrical & Computer Engineering

Mandy Yao earned an undergraduate degree from Boston University’s Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences. She joined LEAP in order to pivot to a new career in technology.

Talk about your internships and upcoming job opportunity.

Last summer, I scratched the engineering surface with an internship at Amazon as a Software Development Engineer. In the span of three months, I designed and implemented a workflow-based solution to help alleviate a manual dependency for On-Call engineers. LEAP has prepared me the autonomy to build features end-to-end and to work in an agile and collaborative environment.

After graduation, I will be joining Meta as a Software Development Engineer. I sincerely appreciate my professors and peers in LEAP, whose support has allowed me to overcome my fear and realize that I am not only going to become an engineer, but a great engineer!

Why did you apply to LEAP?

I applied to LEAP because I wanted to pivot into a new career, specifically the technology industry. I wanted to be in a field that has endless growing opportunities and can shape the next direction our world takes. LEAP was the only program I knew that could provide me with a solid foundation of computer engineering principles and the right space to reinvent myself.

Describe your favorite class project?

My favorite project was developing an app that uses computer vision algorithms and near field communication tags to allow users with visual impairments to identify their surroundings. I was able to combine my knowledge in Health Studies and Computer Engineering to design an app with accessibility design in mind. It was the best feeling to know that what I learned from school was applicable to real world problems.

A moment in time when LEAP made sense.

Fun fact: this is my 10th year at BU! I was a BU Upward Bound alumna in high school, an undergraduate student and now a graduating master’s student! Of course, coming back to LEAP for my master’s degree was a no brainer for me.