From the East to West Coast; from a small town with no internet to one of  the biggest technology corporations in the world; Beatrice Fadrigon has truly seen it all. 

Fadrigon graduated in 2018 and continued her education at University of Pittsburgh,where she earned her Bachelor degree of Science in Psychology. 

During her time at the University of Pittsburgh, Fadrigon worked on a psychological research project to learn about adolescents learning about race and ethnicity. She also was the Diversity and Inclusion Committee Chair for student government and founded a student organization for LGBTQ+ Asian Americans. 

During Fadrigon’s time here, a few teachers helped her realize what direction she would like to go with her life. One of these teachers was Jenna Ritter, who leads the Alliance club.

She said, “Through this student group, I found solace and community in being with other LGBTQ+ students. Without this community, I would not have been as comfortable or interested in researching underrepresented or stigmatized groups– like people of color, or the LGBTQ+ community” 

Other teachers were Kyle Hardenbrook who helped her with “learning presentation skills”. Also Jennifer Adams who contributed to the passion Fadrigon has for the psychology field. 

She is currently going to school at the University of California, Berkeley and plans to leave with her Master of Information Services. 

“Psychology fits into information sciences well, if you take a look at how individuals understand, express, communicate, and share information with one another.” said Fadrigon.

Fadrigon decided to go to Berkeley because she wanted a place where she could receive a scholarship that could cover most of her tuition. Berkeley gave her a full ride. 

“Other factors [of wanting to go to Berkeley] include generally wanting to move to the west coast, wanting to be around my culture as a Filipino American more, and also just wanting to be challenged academically,” said Fadrigon. 

Since she traveled so far for her education, she gave a few thoughts to those who are also from a small town and want to move to a populated area.“College is not necessary to move to a big area, but those who do attend college should get involved in organizations on and off campus.” 

Going to Berkeley isn’t the only big stride that Fadrigon has made, she’s recently been accepted into a program with electronic company Apple for a school project. 

She said, “It entails working on a user research project for Google Area 120, a technology start-up research hub with Google […] I, along with three other students, work with Google employees and conduct research for them such as interviews and surveys”

In simpler terms, Fadrigon is working to “make content creation more accessible and equitable for racial and ethnic minorities”. 

To get into this program, Fadrigon signed into a program called “User Experience Research” and filled out why she was interested through an excel sheet. 

She doesn’t get to go to the Google campus for this project as she is only working with them as a student. 

After she graduates, Fadrigon would like to go into a research-based career on how technology affects people. While Fadrigon said that a PhD is something that she wants to pursue in the future, she would like to work and explore her interests more before taking that step.

She has also considered working to make sure technology is providing an inclusive environment for underrepresented groups.  However, she also isn’t opposed to working with bigger corporations, such as Google. 

“I am open to working for larger corporations if the topics I get to work on help contribute to bettering their environments,” she said. 

If you are interested in learning more about the projects and events that Fadrigon has worked on, visit her website, https://www.bfadrigon.com/ .