My name is Aimé Yelvington (pronounced Uh-may) and I am going to be a 3rd year Information Technology major at UCF. I graduated from Bartram Trail High School in Jacksonville, Florida. My favorite classes at UCF have been Introduction to C programming and any class taught by Professor Matthew Gerber. Intro to C was a very fun class to take because it was the first time I had ever learned code and it was the class where I learned how to access UCF tutoring resources. Any class taught by Professor Gerber is guaranteed to be engaging and interesting. Gerber is my favorite professor because his teaching style is unique and effective. During online semesters, he adjusted his curriculum to benefit us as much as possible and was the only professor I had who I learned the class content from while online. I got involved with the EXCEL program because going to a school with over 67,000 students at the time seemed extremely intimidating. To say that I was terrified of being by myself for the first time is an understatement. The EXCEL program gave me support throughout my first year both in academics and in having a community to engage with. I joined the GEMS program because of the individualized support for women in STEM majors. I became a GEMS mentor to give that same support to other women that I received. When I was a mentee, there were no mentors with technology majors so I largely had to navigate that aspect of school on my own. I wanted to make sure that girls in technology majors felt supported enough to not feel intimidated by the significant gender gap in technology-based fields. In my free time, I play the Clarinet have was in the UCF Marching Knights for 2 years. Aside from that, I’m pretty much an old lady. I like to sew, embroider, bake, and read. 

Words of advice: TAs are paid to help you understand class topics so, don’t be afraid to go to them for help.