Sarah Horne ’22, Computer Science and Business major
“I have a very creative brain,” says Sarah Horne. “I do a lot of sewing projects, and to me, computer science goes hand in hand with that mindset. You’re creating a program with a specific end goal, and you have to piece together how you’ll get there and what tools you’ll need.”
Horne, a creator of patchwork jackets and hats and T-shirt quilts made from high school and college spirit wear, always figured she’d have to give up—to some extent, anyway—her love for fashion if she were to pursue computer science. But when she landed a remote internship as a software engineer this summer at Gap, Inc., it changed everything.
“The internship opened my eyes to the fact that computer science can be applied to the retail space. And even though I’m not picking out the fabric or the collections, I still have a hand in a lot of the retail marketing. I love it.”
Horne credits her capstone experience at Lehigh with giving her a meaningful edge over some of her fellow interns. That project involves developing a transportation app for a real-world client, and she didn’t realize just how realistic the process was until she started the internship. She understood immediately how Gap ran their meetings, what was expected in a stand-up meeting versus a retrospective, and what it meant to be on a sprint timeline.
“I knew the goal of every meeting before my manager explained it to me,” she says, “so it was just a really comfortable transition into the real world.”
And a successful one. After she graduates, Horne will join Gap full time as a software engineer.
Next up: Alexandra Howzen >>
This profile is part of Resolve Magazine's Soaring Together series.
Photography by Douglas Benedict/Academic Image
