Robyn Yates
“Austin Peay gave me a new beginning, an opportunity. I had no direction, no clue what I wanted to do. Now I’m so excited and ready to rule the world with code. I’m stoked.”
Major: Computer Science
Hometown: Austin, Texas
Involvement: Association of Computing Machinery
Robyn Yates’ first go at college, studying nursing at a community college in Texas, just didn’t stick.
She couldn’t see herself going into nursing. Then the military brought her family to Clarksville, and she worked for a couple of years. But she wanted to go back to college.
“I was thinking computer science or math, and I saw that the (Austin Peay) program was a really good one, so I thought I would try it,” she said. “I took a coding class, I fell in love with it, so from there I was, ‘This is what I’m going to do forever,’ and I haven’t stopped since.”
She’s set to graduate and already has a job offer in Texas. Her dream is to work at Disney, especially after connecting with a Disney representative at a recent hackathon at Georgia Tech and learning that Walt Disney World rides run on code.
“I was like, ‘I can make magic and write code,” Yates said.
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She cherishes her time at Austin Peay, and she credits Dr. James Church, a computer science assistant professor, with much of her success.
“I gained a lot of confidence that I didn’t know I could have because I found something that I’m passionate about,” Yates said.
“It’s such a good career because the world is going to technology, everything is going there, so to be passionate about it and to have it be such a great way to go, it’s awesome.”
