Brandon Chung, a Coral Gables High senior, is a computer science whiz, and he has found his niche at Gables.
“My school does offer good opportunities. There are a lot of technology classes,” he said. “Cisco networking, three levels. We have labs and things like that.”
Last summer, he worked a PTSA website so that that parents could pay their dues online.
“I did the back end work. Stuff you wouldn’t see — the data base, handling payments,” he said. “We made it so that people can put it information on the website and pay through Pay Pal.”
He also has done many computer competitions, including some through Future Business Leaders of America. In his first competition, he was tops at the district level, fourth at the state level and he qualified for the national competition.
“I ended up telling everyone about the club. All my friends are into technology,” Chung said. “FBLA has a few technology competitions.”
In Web design he won at the district level but didn’t place at the state level. Then he joined a team with Andrew Baad and Alexander Bazzi and placed first at the national competition in the Network Design category.
He also has competed on a team in the management information systems category. At district, they placed first — an easy feat since they were the only team. But they won state and got into the top 15 at the national event.
Freshman year, Chung started doing computer competitions at Florida colleges. At his first event, at FIU, his team claimed eighth place out of 30 teams. The other Gables team took first place. That team recruited him and they went on to take first place at a UF competition. He has continued to do well in the competitions.
In college, he plans to major in computer science. He is looking at Carnegie Mellon because it has a School of Computer Science, FIU, UM and UF. He has been nominated for a scholarship to Boston University.
By Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
