Brian Hamacher

SWAG On 6: South Broward High's Stephanie Posadas

Hour of Code week just ended in Broward County Public Schools. It’s a nationwide effort to emphasize the importance of teaching computer programming to kids of all ages, at all levels. Some students don’t need to be persuaded, they’re already cyber warriors.

Stephanie Posadas, a junior at South Broward High School, would be a general in the student coding army.

Stephanie tutors her friends as well as classmates she barely knows, bringing her passion for coding to everyone around her.

“I’m trying to help people because I know computers are the future,” Stephanie said.

Sometimes, she acts as a second teacher in Justin Feller’s AP Computer Science class.

“Quite frankly, I wish all my students were like Stephanie with one exception: possibly a little louder,” Feller said.

Stephanie is soft-spoken, but her words pack a punch of knowledge. She’s already designed and produced several apps, and she’s just getting started.

“By the end of this year she will have exhausted all of the computer science classes that we offer here, she will have led a number of Hour of Code events, she will have started a computer science club at a school that’s quite honestly been thirsting for one for about five years now and all the while she will tell you she’s not the best and everyone around her is,” Feller said, emphasizing his star pupil’s humble nature.

Stephanie’s next project, already in the works and set to debut in January, is to create the computer coding club her teacher spoke of. It has a name, Project DEV, which stands for Developing Electronic Visions, and it will allow her to take what she does individually, tutoring classmates, and transfer it to a bigger scale.

“Next year, I will be the president of the club, so I plan on leaving this onto someone, onto someone that I know will do a good job with it,” Stephanie said.

So Project DEV will be Stephanie’s legacy at South Broward High. She also is creating personal legacies with her friends.

“I think she's just a very nice person and she likes helping people,” said Miftahul Jannat, one of Stephanie’s closest friends.

Senior Miles Pophal has worked with Stephanie on Hour of Code productions and workshops, and could not be more impressed.

“She's gonna do great things, she's going places,” Miles said.

“I think it takes a strong person to do all that stuff, to create a club, then help a bunch of people, and then still do school, and still take their tests and still be on top of it,” said Rayan Aliche, a classmate who benefits from Stephanie’s tutoring help.

She’s right, it’s a heavy load, but Stephanie has figured out a way to do all of it while still earning impressive grades. You could say she’s cracked the code.

Contact Us