About

Brianna Thompson is a first-generation college student with an interest in STEM. She chose UNCP because of the admissions staff. As a first-generation college student, she had many questions about navigating the application process and college in general. The UNCP admissions office was patient and worked with her through the whole process to ensure she was getting what she needed.  

In November of 2020 Brianna graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Information Technology with an emphasis in cybersecurity. During her time at UNCP Brianna received the Honors Scholar Fellowship, the Chancellor Incentive Endowed Scholarship,the Academic Enhancement Scholarship, and the Burleigh & Pearlie Lowery Scholarship. Brianna was involved in several organizations and clubs such as being a senator-at-large for SGA, a Site Leader for community and civic engagement, and a member of the Greener Coalition. She also participated in the ASSIST REU program at NCSU and a Summer bootcamp at UNC. While a student Brianna held a few jobs such as yoga instructor for Campus Recreation and various off-campus locations and writing center consultant at the University Writing Center. Brianna also completed research in computer science with a SURF Research Fellowship, 

The most rewarding aspect of being a member of the Honors College to Brianna were the seminar classes. She said that “They give students the opportunity to challenge and develop their ideas and become more well-rounded members of society.” The most surprising thing to her about the Honors College was the sense of community amongst everyone.  

Brianna’s focus for her senior project was a machine learning algorithm. Brianna developed a machine learning algorithm to observe the trends of stocks. She chose this topic because it is a popular topic within the computer science community. For her it was very interesting to study the topic and become more familiar with it. 

Brianna attended UNC Chapel Hill's MA in Information Science program after graduation. The advice that Brianna would like to give to future honors students is: “Make moving lists! Moving lists keep you on track with assignments and responsibilities. When you are on top of all of your responsibilities, you are given the freedom to have fun and truly enjoy the other aspects of your life without having nagging thoughts.”