Will Hodges: Codemaker

Twice a year, every Sequoyah high school student participates in Talking Leaves, where they research a topic of their choice and present their argument to faculty, classmates, and guests over the course of one week. It’s a fantastic experience that showcases both academic growth and public speaking skills, but with more than 200 participants addressing crowds across a dozen classrooms, getting it all sorted can be, well, challenging.

Will Hodges ‘22 made a program to fix all that.

Using his computer science skills, Will spent a good  portion of his senior year collaborating with Sequoyah  faculty to design a scheduler that simplifies the process  of creating each Talking Leaves. “The process of writing the code took me a lot of time researching and trial and error,” he says. “I still remember how excited I was when the code fully worked for the first time. I’ve updated the software a few times to make it faster and more reliable using skills I’ve learned throughout college.”

A Burbank native, Will attends Harvey Mudd College, a premier STEM institution in the United States. He chose the school because of its commitment to sciences and its unique capacity, as a member of The Claremont Colleges consortium, that allows him to cross-register in humanities and liberal arts classes at nearby colleges.

“When applying,” he says, “I decided on a liberal arts school that would give me the opportunity to continue exploring what fulfills me, just as Sequoyah had.”

For Will, that Sequoyah humanities education was one of the most important parts in preparing him for college. “While STEM has been one of my interests as a student,” he adds, “humanities taught me to think critically about the world, understand the impact of STEM on society, and made STEM all the more meaningful.

“I learned the importance of how to write, work across disciplines, collaborate, and communicate. I use these skills daily, and practicing them at Sequoyah gave me a head start in the transition to college.”

Talking Leaves, in particular, allowed him to both prepare for college-level work and represent his ideas more effectively to his peers: “I learned the necessity of translating key ideas from higher-level technical conversations with teachers for those who don’t have the same background.”

Now entering his third year at Harvey Mudd, Will continues a journey of scientific discovery that began when he took his first STEM class at Sequoyah. He continues to explore different his academic options and recently switched majors from physics to engineering. “I’m still working on finding what excites me the most,” he says. “I also feel confident in trying new fields and professions if those interests change—even after I graduate.”

Until then, Will remains a presence in the Sequoyah community, returning for annual Capture the Flag events on the K-8 campus and participating in the school’s first Reunion Dinner for high school graduates earlier this year. And as for his coding?

“I still use my programming skills in college,” he says. “I can’t think of anything I’ve made that’s similar to my Talking Leaves schedule, though.”