Impact Stories: Raymond
How to Go From Catapult to Career
With a month to go before his graduation from Purdue University, Raymond Xie accepted a full-time position with Zylo, an SaaS management company in Indianapolis where he’s now an intern. With this milestone, Raymond becomes the epitome of where computer science and Nextech can take you.
It wasn’t so long ago that Raymond took his first computer science class at Franklin Central High School. He admits to having few expectations then.
“I’d been torn between being a nuclear engineer and a physicist with a passing interest in computer science,” he said. “Then I noticed that I was constantly playing video games and being on the Internet. That’s when I saw that computer science was an option at our school.”
He added a computer science class to his sophomore-year schedule. At some point, the business teacher who taught the class, Sharon Jackson, “kind of casually mentioned Catapult,” an immersive Nextech program that includes a summer internship and workshops throughout the school year.
“I applied for the program, which was out of character for me at the time. Normally I wouldn’t have gone out of my way like that. I interviewed a week later and was accepted.”
Again “not expecting much,” Raymond went to Catapult—and what he came away with blew him away.
Catapult: A transformative experience
“Catapult is kind of like a grab bag of different things meant to expose you to the professional tech industry. It’s awesome. I struggle to even summarize what we did in six weeks when people ask me about it—they packed in so much,” he said. “I remember getting my first exposure to web development, and we had a week in a design-thinking workshop to figure out a creative solution to food insecurity in the area. We came up with something like meal kits but more like a garden kit to grow your own vegetables and fruits in your home or apartment. We even made a group presentation to an urban farm planner and volunteered at Flanner House Urban Farms later on.”
Hearing from people who worked in tech and visiting companies like Salesforce to see computer science in the real world transformed Raymond’s future.
“We heard a lot from tech professionals that demystified what the field looks like to work in,” he said.
Thanks to connections made during Catapult, he ended up with three internships at Salesforce: a stint while he was a high school senior and two others during college.
“Nextech got that first one for me. Salesforce didn’t exactly hire high school interns,” he chuckled. “It was a short assignment that was more about getting used to what it’s like to work at an enterprise company. I mainly handled bug-fix tickets and worked with a college intern on a proof of concept.”
His next internship after entering college was part of the Salesforce Futureforce recruitment program. He joined a team to build a dashboard for adoption metrics to be a management tool. As a sophomore, his next internship allowed him to write end-to-end tests for one of Salesforce’s products in development and build out a proof of concept for an API logging feature.
“The first internship was very data oriented. The second one was pretty technical. It was the first time I wrote a design document—a great learning experience,” he said.
His final internship landed him the job at Zylo.
Issues of accessibility, not race
With his new job, Raymond joins a growing demographic: tech workers who have an Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) background.
In March 2023, computerscience.org wrote, “AAPI professionals stand out for their role in shaping computer science. They are well represented in computer science and make significant contributions to the field. Although only about 5.7% of the U.S. population is AAPI, they comprise 20% of the computing workforce.”
In his LinkedIn profile photo, Raymond’s wearing a hoodie emblazoned with the word “Trailblazer,” though he doesn’t in any way see himself as part of forging a path for Asian Americans (or Canadians, for that matter).
“When I think about my identity, which isn’t very often, it’s usually Canadian or Canadian Chinese. As I get older, I become more interested in getting in touch with the culture I came from. It’s kind of been an up-and-down sort of thing, figuring out how connected I feel to my Asian identity,” he said. “For a lot of kids when they’re growing up, they’re inclined to push away from their Asian identity because it makes them different. Eventually you grow to appreciate it more. That’s where I find myself now.”
Despite the high ratio of AAPI individuals in tech compared to other non-white population segments, computerscience.org continued, “Asian American and Pacific Islander computer scientists, especially women, can still feel like outsiders and experience discrimination.” Raymond said he’s good at ignoring the stereotypes and any negativity around Asian Americans.
The big issue in tech and computer science for him is accessibility, not race.
“To get people into computer science, it comes down to the practical and psychological accessibility of the field. Growing up, I had access to a computer and fairly high-speed internet, and I wasn’t kicked off by my dad or my brother or a slow connection. For a lot of people, all that’s not available to them. That’s the practical aspect,” he said. “Psychologically, computer science can be perceived as intimidating: Is it a lot of math? It is a lot of logic and programming? It does have those things, but I also think it has so many opportunities. There are so many things you can do in computer science that you can find your niche.
“At the end of the day it’s a problem-solving toolkit you can use whenever you want to build something or solve some problem.”
The first steps, Raymond said, are to take a computer science class and apply to Catapult.
“I recommend Catapult 100%. Even if you don’t end up going into computer science, it’s a great experience for giving you more direction in terms of what you want to be doing. You don’t have to do programming or software development. The tech industry is such a wide field and there are so many things you can do—product management, data analyst, development, design, whatever. Open your mind to those possibilities.”
With a month to go before his graduation from Purdue University, Raymond Xie accepted a full-time position with Zylo, an SaaS management company in Indianapolis where he’s now an intern. With this milestone, Raymond becomes the epitome of where computer science and Nextech can take you.
It wasn’t so long ago that Raymond took his first computer science class at Franklin Central High School. He admits to having few expectations then.
“I’d been torn between being a nuclear engineer and a physicist with a passing interest in computer science,” he said. “Then I noticed that I was constantly playing video games and being on the Internet. That’s when I saw that computer science was an option at our school.”
He added a computer science class to his sophomore-year schedule. At some point, the business teacher who taught the class, Sharon Jackson, “kind of casually mentioned Catapult,” an immersive Nextech program that includes a summer internship and workshops throughout the school year.
“I applied for the program, which was out of character for me at the time. Normally I wouldn’t have gone out of my way like that. I interviewed a week later and was accepted.”
Again “not expecting much,” Raymond went to Catapult—and what he came away with blew him away.
Catapult: A transformative experience
“Catapult is kind of like a grab bag of different things meant to expose you to the professional tech industry. It’s awesome. I struggle to even summarize what we did in six weeks when people ask me about it—they packed in so much,” he said. “I remember getting my first exposure to web development, and we had a week in a design-thinking workshop to figure out a creative solution to food insecurity in the area. We came up with something like meal kits but more like a garden kit to grow your own vegetables and fruits in your home or apartment. We even made a group presentation to an urban farm planner and volunteered at Flanner House Urban Farms later on.”
Hearing from people who worked in tech and visiting companies like Salesforce to see computer science in the real world transformed Raymond’s future.
“We heard a lot from tech professionals that demystified what the field looks like to work in,” he said.
Thanks to connections made during Catapult, he ended up with three internships at Salesforce: a stint while he was a high school senior and two others during college.
“Nextech got that first one for me. Salesforce didn’t exactly hire high school interns,” he chuckled. “It was a short assignment that was more about getting used to what it’s like to work at an enterprise company. I mainly handled bug-fix tickets and worked with a college intern on a proof of concept.”
His next internship after entering college was part of the Salesforce Futureforce recruitment program. He joined a team to build a dashboard for adoption metrics to be a management tool. As a sophomore, his next internship allowed him to write end-to-end tests for one of Salesforce’s products in development and build out a proof of concept for an API logging feature.
“The first internship was very data oriented. The second one was pretty technical. It was the first time I wrote a design document—a great learning experience,” he said.
His final internship landed him the job at Zylo.
Issues of accessibility, not race
With his new job, Raymond joins a growing demographic: tech workers who have an Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) background.
In March 2023, computerscience.org wrote, “AAPI professionals stand out for their role in shaping computer science. They are well represented in computer science and make significant contributions to the field. Although only about 5.7% of the U.S. population is AAPI, they comprise 20% of the computing workforce.”
In his LinkedIn profile photo, Raymond’s wearing a hoodie emblazoned with the word “Trailblazer,” though he doesn’t in any way see himself as part of forging a path for Asian Americans (or Canadians, for that matter).
“When I think about my identity, which isn’t very often, it’s usually Canadian or Canadian Chinese. As I get older, I become more interested in getting in touch with the culture I came from. It’s kind of been an up-and-down sort of thing, figuring out how connected I feel to my Asian identity,” he said. “For a lot of kids when they’re growing up, they’re inclined to push away from their Asian identity because it makes them different. Eventually you grow to appreciate it more. That’s where I find myself now.”
Despite the high ratio of AAPI individuals in tech compared to other non-white population segments, computerscience.org continued, “Asian American and Pacific Islander computer scientists, especially women, can still feel like outsiders and experience discrimination.” Raymond said he’s good at ignoring the stereotypes and any negativity around Asian Americans.
The big issue in tech and computer science for him is accessibility, not race.
“To get people into computer science, it comes down to the practical and psychological accessibility of the field. Growing up, I had access to a computer and fairly high-speed internet, and I wasn’t kicked off by my dad or my brother or a slow connection. For a lot of people, all that’s not available to them. That’s the practical aspect,” he said. “Psychologically, computer science can be perceived as intimidating: Is it a lot of math? It is a lot of logic and programming? It does have those things, but I also think it has so many opportunities. There are so many things you can do in computer science that you can find your niche.
“At the end of the day it’s a problem-solving toolkit you can use whenever you want to build something or solve some problem.”
The first steps, Raymond said, are to take a computer science class and apply to Catapult.
“I recommend Catapult 100%. Even if you don’t end up going into computer science, it’s a great experience for giving you more direction in terms of what you want to be doing. You don’t have to do programming or software development. The tech industry is such a wide field and there are so many things you can do—product management, data analyst, development, design, whatever. Open your mind to those possibilities.”
