USD Magazine Spring 2021

A L E X A P I L A T O

[ r e s i l i e n c e ]

hloe Zakhour’s father passed away unexpect- edly less than two years C R I S I N G T O T H E C H A L L E N G E USD grads and seniors won’t let obstacles block their success by Liz Harman

the job was really more about communication and problem solving, the kind of challenge that’s usually solved through informal conversations in the office. “I had to learn to do that through an online platform,” Devlin explains. With practice, he came to understand the vibe of Microsoft’s corporate culture and has been invited back to intern next summer, before he graduates in December 2021. Students also have had to deal with the anger and frustra- tion following the death of George Floyd and similar incidents. Devlin, president of the USD chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers, is the co-founder of HBN (How Bout Now), mobile social media platform dedicated to “giving everyone a voice, especially those who

and banana bread, made using simple ingredients. “We love being local; our goal is to make the business even bigger,” says Zakhour ’20 (BA), pictured second from right, alongside members of her family. She used the social media skills she acquired during an internship with USD’s Digital Communica- tions and Institutional Marketing department to promote the busi- ness, which has a robust presence on Instagram (#brightbreadco). A global pandemic, subsequent economic downturn and incidents of racial injustice have only added

to the challenges today’s young people are facing. But USD seniors and new graduates have responded with courage, resil- ience and success. Electrical engineering major Devin Devlin faced the prospect of not just remote classes but a remote internship as well. The first-generation college student was scheduled to intern at Micro- soft’s offices in Redmond, Wash- ington but ended up working from San Diego as a program manager for the software firm’s new Excel Sheet View program. Instead of technical skills,

ago. Her mom had then joined the workforce, but was laid off when the pandemic took hold. To help support themselves, the family started a home baking business, using their 80-year- old grandmother’s recipes. Their Orange County neigh- bors and other customers quickly started snapping up their baked goods. Between May and early October, the business, dubbed Bright Bread Company, sold more than 700 loaves of bread

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