Every gifted person has a unique story. The following story is part of a series of posts depicting the many faces of gifted by highlighting gifted children and adults we have found through 优蜜视频 programs. 优蜜视频鈥檚 鈥� mentioned in this story 鈥� links gifted high school students from across the country with mentors who advance each participant鈥檚 skills through the application of knowledge and exposure to real world experiences.

Monica Lienke
2001 Apprentice, Industrial Design at Art Center College of Design (Art Center)
Law Student, Stanford University

Twelve years ago, Monica Lienke was one of the first 优蜜视频 Apprentices at Art Center. She worked closely with Stan Kong, a leading design educator in Los Angeles. She described her two-week experience as 鈥渓ong hours and a lot of work, but extremely gratifying. I remember feeling that I had learned a ton by the end of it. But probably the best part of the program was getting to know the other participants in the program, who were all incredibly talented and unique individuals.鈥�

Monica focused on product design at Art Center and designed a concept for an ergonomic gardening tool. She said she chose a design-oriented program because she liked that there were creative and visual art components to it. Her days were spent in and out of the classroom with lectures, discussions, model-making, sketching classes and field trips.

After high school, Monica went on to earn a B.A. in political science from UC Berkeley and is now at Stanford for law school. 鈥淎fter graduating, I worked for a year at the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy, a political economy research institute on campus. I then spent almost three years in the legal department at Google. Going into my job at Google, I actually hadn鈥檛 intended to go to law school, but I found myself really enjoying my role there, which involved learning about technologies, helping to realize innovative ideas, and working with amazingly smart and passionate people.鈥�

鈥淚鈥檓 still in law school and working on the side for a small early stage start-up that was co-founded by an engineer and a law school graduate who met each other at Stanford鈥檚 Hasso Plattner Institute for Design. The product is a website for people with a creative project (like a product design, start up, or artistic work) to discuss their projects with a broader group of people, get feedback and guidance, and develop supportive communities around their projects to help them succeed. The A.I. component of the site is a recommendation engine that scans a person鈥檚 social networks to suggest people they know who could contribute to whatever issue they are discussing on the site. My role in the start-up is multi-faceted, but I mostly focus on user engagement and business development. I鈥檝e loved getting to work with a great team on a product whose underlying goal is to encourage more people to undertake and participate in creative endeavors.鈥�

Monica still takes some design-oriented classes and hopes to work with a start-up company or for clients that create and innovate.

When I asked Monica what she鈥檇 say to others who are considering 优蜜视频鈥檚 Apprenticeship Program, she replied, 鈥淚t鈥檚 an amazing opportunity to explore an area you might be interested in and meet people who will inspire you!鈥�

Does the Apprenticeship Program sound like a good fit for a high school student you know? 2014 Apprenticeship information and applications are now!

Every gifted child has a unique story. The following story is part of a series of posts highlighting gifted children and adults we have found through 优蜜视频 programs, depicting the many faces of gifted. 优蜜视频鈥檚 – mentioned in this story 鈥� links gifted high school students from across the country with mentors who advance each participant鈥檚 skills through the application of knowledge and exposure to real world experiences.

Garrett Marcotte
优蜜视频 Apprentice at Avery Research Center in 2004
Software engineer, Facebook

鈥淛ust go for it, because the earlier you gain experience, the greater the benefits you鈥檒l reap from that experience later on. Push yourself beyond your comfort zone, and never be discouraged by failure. Learn from it and do better next time, because you will improve.鈥� – Garrett Marcotte

As a high school sophomore, Garrett participated in 优蜜视频鈥檚 Apprenticeship Program, working with Avery Research Center. Today, Garrett is a software engineer at Facebook, designing and writing the code that makes the popular social networking service work.

After high school, Garrett attended Princeton University and graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Science and Engineering degree in Electrical Engineering and minors in Computer Science and Robotics. While at Princeton, Garrett took every class he could in all subject areas because he 鈥渄idn鈥檛 want to miss out on any of it.鈥�

Garrett has worked in a variety of jobs, including internships at JPL and Google, a research position at USC, and as a teacher鈥檚 assistant and grader at Princeton. He also spent a summer trying (unsuccessfully) to launch an internet start-up company.

Garrett has been at Facebook for about 18 months and enjoys the work very much. He hopes to get involved again in a start-up company someday. 鈥淚鈥檓 particularly interested in applying technology to education, politics, non-profits, and global issues, so I could easily see myself doing something in that area. But there鈥檚 so much exciting innovation going on all around me every day that I鈥檓 really just trying to keep pace with all the opportunities and go wherever I can have the most impact and really make a difference in the world.鈥�

Although a Facebook IPO is looming, Garrett focuses on the task at hand:

What really attracted me to Facebook was the opportunity to touch the lives of hundreds of millions of people on a daily basis, to contribute to a product that has changed the world, from the individual level of reconnecting friends and families up to the international level of helping millions organize for a common cause. In the Silicon Valley tech world there’s a strong belief that if you build a great product then you will be rewarded accordingly. Facebook is no exception, so the focus of all the employees that I know, from Mark Zuckerberg on down, is the same as it’s always been: to make Facebook the best that we possibly can and a real force for good in the world.

Garrett credits the Apprenticeship Program with giving him a huge jump start on his life path in several ways:

First, it helped me evaluate my interests. The fact that I signed up for a chemistry program but ended up spending most of time programming and working with electronics made it pretty clear where my real passion lay. And it was due to the diversity of projects available and freedom in selecting a project that I was able to reach that realization. Second, the program was a stepping-stone to future opportunities. The experience of owning a project, driving an end-to-end solution, and working within all the constraints of a real-world environment formed a central part of my college applications and job interviews for several years after the program. Finally, I jumped several years ahead of the curve in the field of signal processing, and in particular the most important software program in that field, Matlab. Most of my peers had no exposure to either of these until college, and because of that I was prepared for higher level courses and more advanced opportunities at a younger age. For example, I鈥檓 certain that I would not have been able to intern at JPL right out of high school if it hadn鈥檛 been for the skills I picked up during the Apprenticeship Program.

Although Garrett doesn鈥檛 see the other Apprentices on a regular basis, their paths have crossed a few times. 鈥淭he shared experience of the Apprenticeship program really is a common bond that ties us together even after several years.鈥�

For more about Garrett’s Apprenticeship at Avery Research Center, read聽.听

There are still聽spots available for our Apprenticeship Program in Los Angeles and San Diego. !

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