From the King Street Chronicle: "Humans of Sacred Heart" - Stephanie Stibler '28

“Humans of Sacred Heart” – Stephanie Stibler ’28

Complied by Lilia Newman ’27, Co-Arts & Entertainment Editor 

What do the computer science awards you received in the 2025 Carnegie Mellon University Computer Science Academy Creative Task challenge mean to you?  What work or projects led to earning them?

“The coding that won the awards was something I did last year in the freshman year-long computer science course.  I would spend a lot of time on my coding.  For example, the assignment we had for the unit three task, which earned third place, was assigned on Monday and due on Thursday, and in that time I spent about 14 hours on it.  In my room, during frees, and in the car ride home after volleyball practice, I spent every free moment I had trying to perfect my code and get it to what my vision was.  It’s a lot of tedious work to try and code.  Sometimes you get semantic errors and don’t know where the issue might be in your hundreds of lines of code, only to realize you wrote the wrong sign in an argument for a function, but [this process] helps you to be more patient and take the time needed to look through it.”

What inspired you to pursue computer science at Sacred Heart?  What motivates you to succeed in this field?

“When I came to this school in ninth grade, I wasn’t used to having the freedom to actually pick my classes.  In my middle school, everyone did the same thing, except for math.  I was overwhelmed by the choices.  I originally wanted to do Science Research because I dream of working in a lab one day.  However, my mom convinced me to do computer science for one year and then, if I really didn’t like it, I could swap to Science Research [in] my sophomore year.  I didn’t mind computer science, so I stuck with it and am still doing it this year.  One main motivation for me to succeed in computer science is definitely my father.  He worked at International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) for about 20 years and [worked in] technology at my middle school.  In elementary school, he had me programming games in Scratch, and by fifth grade, he had me doing a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) freshman-level course in coding Python.  For my whole life, coding has been something engrained in me, so picking it back up to code these projects felt almost natural.  It was just that I was learning a different side of it.”

How have your classes, teachers, or experiences at Sacred Heart helped you grow academically or personally?  How did they contribute to your success in earning your awards?

“I’d say that my teachers at Sacred Heart have helped me to grow, such as Dr. Saffron Castle and Dr. Melissa Pecullan.  Both [Dr. Castle and Dr. Pecullan] have a real passion for what they are teaching, and you can feel their joy in talking about subjects they love.  Dr. Castle, specifically, is open […] about her love of chemistry, in a way that I hope to be too.  Both she and Dr. Pecullan are the kind of people you could chat with for hours, picking out information, and you just wouldn’t get bored, because they have so much to teach.  They both have worked in a lab, and I aspire to be like them one day, receiving a doctorate of my own and getting the hands-on experience Sacred Heart prepares me for.  There are also teachers like Dr. William Mottolese, who, if you’re having a tough day, you can go to and know that they will be there for you if you need it.  They don’t judge you.  They just give you the room to be yourself and give you assurance, helping you to have the confidence to speak louder about who you are.”

The King Street Chronicle thanks sophomore Stephanie Stibler ’28 for her contributions to “Humans of Sacred Heart.”https://shgreenwichkingstreetchronicle.org/

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