Posted on February 8, 2024 by Storm Goodman
Katia Amori
Right before graduating from Reagan High School, a local San Antonio-based school, Katia was still unsure where to go after graduation to continue her education. That all changed when she took a tour of UTSA and instantly fell in love with it. Inspired by the facilities and opportunities available, Katia knew she had to attend UTSA the upcoming fall semester.
Katia started her Klesse College Journey as a Computer Engineering Major but decided to pursue Electrical Engineering as well to further expand her pool of skills. To most, double majoring in two different engineering degrees sounds like a huge undertaking, but Katia enjoyed almost every second and has no regrets. She attributes much of her love for these programs to the various opportunities she had to be creative and think outside the box throughout them.
The project she was the most fond of was her Microcomputer Systems final, where she had to develop and implement a program into the microcomputer. Using the skills she had acquired from both majors, she developed a compass game that incorporated LEDs to help the user point the compass toward a randomly generated number.
“The department helped make that addition smooth and structured the classes to where key skills from both majors were intertwined in the opposing coursework.”
Katia also spent four months in Spain as part of a study abroad program. During her internship, she got the incredible opportunity to intern with Decidata, an AI and data analytics startup that was focused on modernizing the tech solutions of other Spanish companies. One of her biggest takeaways from the experience was the incredible real-world experience she gained while working in a professional setting. Throughout her internship, Katia was also able to elevate her Spanish skills, the language she is minoring in, to a professional level, write code that would later be sold to Decidata’s clients and even teach a masterclass to her coworkers in Spanish about a new program they were using.
Katia also notes how her time at UTSA has affected her ability to tackle issues and challenges that would be presented after her graduation.
“My time at UTSA has shaped the way I think, with a diverse group of classmates and professors, I learned to view a problem from multiple perspectives and provide a pathway to a solution that would produce the best outcome with the least amount of risk.”
After graduation, Katia is planning to pursue a career as an embedded software engineer. Katia sees a software engineering position as the perfect fit for her due to its fast-paced work-environment and constant rotation of new and exciting projects to work on that lets her utilize skills acquired from both her majors.
Katia received an endowment award from the Open Cloud Institute for her research pursuits as well as the Outstanding Undergraduate Student Award from the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department.
Katia will be graduating this upcoming December.
— Storm Goodman
This story is a student internship hightlight. Read about more Klesse student internship experiences here!
