Student News
Student Spotlight: Maria Hall
February 28, 2025
Maria Hall is a senior, information science major at Grand Valley. After taking an introductory coding course in high school, she instantly knew she wanted to major in the computing field. “I kind of fell in love with it from there because I never really done anything like that before,” said Maria. “As soon as I took that class, I was like this is it, I know I want to be in the tech field.”
She decided specifically on information systems because of the combination of technical skills, business ideas and project management. Project management is an area Maria is interested in as a career as well, so information systems was a perfect match for her.
She decided specifically on GVSU because of the location and the campus. “I did really love campus, campus is beautiful to me, so that was one thing about Grand Valley,” Maria said. Maria is from the east side of Michigan, so GVSU felt close yet far from home at the same time. This was important to her because it gives her the freedom to explore new opportunities while being closer to home.
Maria is a member of GVSU’s NSBE chapter, the National Society of Black Engineers. While NSBE exists in the School of Engineering, Maria was a member before the College of Computing began. She said this experience has allowed her to network and connect with many new people. She is traveling to Chicago this week for NSBE’s annual convention where she hopes to gain even more career experience.
After graduation, Maria hopes to enter either the project management or software development field. She said that her experience in the College of Computing has helped set her up to start a career, especially the internship preparation and capstone projects. She said, “We’re meeting with actual organizations and completing some sort of project for them. I think that’s one of the best ways that we actually get our feet out there.”
Article written by Maxwell Ritchie.