Finding solutions in the real world takes critical thinking, curiosity, interpersonal skills, and a growth mindset. We spoke with three alumni about the skills they need to succeed in their respective fields, and how UPrep prepared them for their paths.

Cyd Harrell '88

Cyd Harrell ’88 is the chief digital services officer for the city and county of San Francisco. As a civic technologist with a team of 50 people, she works to bring the useful parts of advances in technology into the public sector. She also is the author of A Civic Technologist’s Practice Guide, the first guide to civic technology for practitioners. She earned a BA in linguistics at Yale University in 1992.

Tell me about your career in tech.
I thought I’d be a poet with a day job in tech. I have worked in the industry since the ‘90s, starting with design work and user research. When I was 40—and my daughter was 7—I began thinking about my own impact and what I wanted to do with all these cool skills. I worked on a project called The Field Guides, which are research-based best practice guides for election officials and included titles like Designing Usable Ballots, Testing Ballots for Usability, and Effective Pollworker Materials. I’ve worked for Code for America, a nonprofit organization that aims to bridge the gap between the public and private sectors in their use of technology and design, and for the Judicial Council of California, where I focused on better technology for people who are involved in the civil justice system, from child custody cases to small-claims cases. I became the head technologist for San Francisco in 2022. Were you able to sign up on your phone to get a COVID vaccine? Civic technologists put that together.

How did UPrep prepare you for your career?
UPrep really encouraged conversation between teachers and young people, and adults and young people, and they tried to say yes to a lot of things students would ask for. It taught me a lot of foundational building blocks for a career that involves a lot of navigating power structures and navigating relationships and explaining myself to all kinds of audiences. Learning how to write properly was a big deal; I use that all the time. The performance work I did with Mr. Fleming—I was in every play I could be in—also shaped me. It was also a scrappy small school. My class included 25 people. There was a real sense of possibility. We were encouraged to figure out how to do the things we really wanted to do, and I have definitely done just that throughout my career.

How can UPrep prepare students to work in the tech field?
In my field, where we’re trying to make institutions more capable and more inclusive through using technology, you have to be a systems thinker and you have to be able to look at power relations. Students need to learn critical thinking skills. We are also 12 or 13 years into a 50-year trajectory when it comes to government tech advances. There are no established career ladders, so people need to be self-starters who can imagine something and actually make it happen. You can pick up tech skills, but you absolutely need interpersonal skills and the ability to work with a wide array of people, too.
 

Fleur Cowan '96

Fleur Cowan ’96 is the deputy consul general at Consulate General Istanbul. As an American diplomat, she’s served as a Foreign Service officer at the Department of State for the last 21 years in eight countries. She runs a team of over 400 Americans and Turks who work for 10 U.S. government agencies. (Another UPrep alum works on her team: Alison Brown ’01!) Fleur received an MA in international relations from the University of St Andrews and an MA in national security studies from Georgetown University.

Tell me about your work.
We’re generalists—we work on a wide array of issues. It always changes and is never boring. For example, I worked on LGBTQ issues while I was stationed in Rome, and on press freedom and women’s empowerment when I was in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Part of my job here is to find opportunities for American companies and to build those connections that are good for us and are good for Turkey. I recently met the head of the Istanbul ferry lines and I think she was astonished when I told her I come from the state in America with the biggest ferry system. Istanbul has 16 million people, and the ferries are fundamental. We talked about making mass transit green and moving water transit away from diesel. I’m trying to connect her with smart people in the U.S. who are working toward the same goals so they can share ideas.

How did UPrep prepare you for your career?
UPrep really encouraged my own creativity and curiosity. The teachers were able to crack open doors to other cultures and
languages. We had to learn the standard curriculum, of course, but there was a degree of flexibility. They were able to help you find what really caught your interest and teach you to take your curiosity and run with it.

What experiences at UPrep have shaped your career?
I went on a Winter Opportunities trip to Japan with Mr. Grant. I’d never seen such an incredible, different, and rich culture. I felt a bit at sea, and I loved that feeling that everything was different. I was even taking pictures of the sewer grates because they were so beautiful! I also use what I learned in Mr. Fleming’s Play Production and Stagecraft classes every day—the skills and the confidence to stand alone on a stage—I use those skills constantly. I gave a speech yesterday and I get to give another one tomorrow. Nearly 20 years ago, I had the opportunity to be introduced to Pope John Paul II. I didn’t know I’d meet him that day, but I was suddenly told to stand up and greet the Holy Father. All I could think of was Mr. Fleming’s advice to “learn your lines and don’t trip over the furniture!” I walked alone across this giant Vatican hall in front of more important people than I think I’ve ever been in a room with, but I had the confidence I needed.

How can UPrep prepare students to work in your field?
UPrep teachers guided me to be curious about myself and other people. In diplomacy, policy is people. I spend so much time having cups of tea and coffee with Turks to get to know them. That curiosity about the diversity of human experiences and perspectives is something I got from my time at UPrep. UPrep also gives students the freedom to choose who they want to be in the world, and that’s really powerful. You can’t choose what happens to you, but you absolutely get to choose how to respond.

Aisse Torres '17

Aisse Torres ’17 is a software engineer at Microsoft. She earned her BA in applied mathematics at Columbia University. When she was a college student, she was a King County STEM super youth advocate for the education nonprofit Washington STEM because she believes that every student deserves to be exposed to scientific knowledge and hands-on engineering.

Tell me about your work.
I interned for my current team for three summers before joining them full time after college graduation. My colleagues and I help the Office software team by performing testing and flighting for new features that are going to be released as part of the software platform. I work in an area that we call scorecards. Scorecards provide data about features and how they are being received by customers. We provide a platform to join and present this data, and tools that help accelerate time to decision to ship.

How did UPrep prepare you for your career?
In college, I was comfortable with the material in my computer science classes because of how well UPrep prepared me. I had to work really hard in my computer science classes at UPrep to get good grades and I was learning alongside students who had more experience than me. But this prepared me for the tech industry. You have to get used to working with people who might have more experience than you. And it’s an industry where women are still the minority. A challenging part of my job is knowing how a program is going to be read by a computer. At UPrep, I learned how to dissect information and ask good questions. A lot of what I do at work is reading documents and other people’s coding and asking questions. Coding is really just problem-solving.

What skills will students need in order to work in your field in the future?
Engineers need to be able to easily connect problems with opportunities. Basically, I solve problems all day long, and I love it. It is really like solving puzzles. I am very comfortable making mistakes, and, at Microsoft, I am allowed to make mistakes and go back and fix them. Students really need to learn growth mindset skills and be OK with a process of failure that eventually leads to success. Also, I’ve tried ChatGPT recently to double-check coding, and it’s very good at creating coding solutions, provided that program requirements and important implementation decisions have been identified and given to ChatGPT. I think we are going to see a lot of work for early-in-career folks revolve around taking advantage of the capabilities of ChatGPT.

What’s your favorite UPrep memory?
I hung out in the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Office [now called the DEIB Office] a lot. One day, a friend jokingly told [then] Upper School Director Ken Jaffe that we needed a pizza, and he handed us cash and said to bring him leftovers. But then, he hung out and ate pizza with us! This story epitomizes how I felt a sense of community at UPrep. The track and field coaches, my teachers, and the staff—I remember them all fondly. I had the best time growing up and going to UPrep. ■