Cowan – CoE Commencement Speaker
Every spring, the College of Engineering at UC Santa Barbara bestows four special honors upon graduating seniors
Excerpt from COE News article "CoE Announces Prestigious Student Awards for Class of 2021"
Tiffany Cowan, who has earned a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering, has been selected to represent the Class of 2021 as the student speaker during the College of Engineering’s live virtual commencement celebration. Born in Takasaki, Japan, Cowan immigrated to the United States at a young age with her mother and two older siblings.
“As an immigrant and youngest child of three, I feel like making my family proud has always been most important to me,” said Cowan. “My family has sacrificed a lot for me, and I hope this degree will help me give back to them in some way. Though the circumstances of the pandemic aren’t ideal, I’m thankful that my family in Japan can now watch me graduate on Zoom, too.”
During her time at UCSB, Cowan was an active member of campus, joining the Society of Women Engineers, the Japanese Student Association, and the Japanese Language Club. She was also involved in Womxn/Hacks, a 36-hour all-female-identifying hackathon dedicated to giving womxn of all backgrounds and fields the opportunity to delve into coding in a supportive and inclusive environment. Cowan’s team won the competition in 2020. She described the hackathon as one of her favorite memories from UCSB.
“Walking into a classroom and only seeing a handful of women can be a bit discouraging. However, I felt seen, heard, and safe at Womxn/Hacks, and it showed me how much I’m capable of accomplishing,” said Cowan. “It was also incredibly fun building and programming a robot in 36 hours with my best friends.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Cowan says that the transition to remote learning was a difficult adjustment. She found it challenging to hold herself accountable for schoolwork, and she missed the face-to-face interaction with her classmates and friends. Cowan says the goal of her speech is to reminisce about the memories that she and her fellow graduates created together.
“I hope that my fellow graduates will be reminded that despite all the hardships, it was our hard work, determination, and friendships that brought us to this amazing milestone and prepared us for the achievements ahead of us,” she said.
In August, Cowan will begin her new job as a system validation engineer for NVIDIA, where she will be testing and debugging as a member of the DGX team.
COE News – "CoE Announces Prestigious Student Awards for Class of 2021" (full article)
