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Teenage Girl Tackles it All
Professional Dancer and Web Designer at age 14
At age 14, Vera Jones seems to be an average 9th grade student attending a private high school in Pennsylvania.
While busy acclimating to the new pressures of high school, she is enjoying her classes and making new friends.
However, Vera's ambition to succeed far exceeds the average high school student. Not only is Vera an accomplished
pianist who played at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia, this honor student also danced
in the Pennsylvania Ballet's performance of the “Nutcracker.” In addition, Vera was hired as a web designer. After
attending a Web Design course with iD Tech Camps at Villanova
University, Vera found a new love for technology and the skills she needed to be hired to design and maintain the
Urban Man page of the Philadelphia Urban Solutions website. iD Tech Camps provides weeklong, hands-on technology
summer programs for ages 7-17 at over 35 prestigious universities in 17 states, including Villanova and Princeton
Universities in the Philadelphia-New Jersey area.
Vera's mother, Yvonne Jones, not only recognized Vera's strengths in the arts, but also encouraged the importance
of technology in today's society. She chose to send her daughter to iD Tech Camps as an overnight camper to get the
experience of being away from home at a prestigious university while introducing her to web design. Vera had a
working knowledge of computers, yet was a beginner in web design. Vera was able to work at her own pace because
the program offers personalized attention with a 6:1 student to instructor ratio. "The instructors at iD Tech
Camps were nice, encouraging, and down to earth. I looked up to them," said Vera. She jumped right in and
in one week, Vera created a website about a professional basketball player who worked his way up through the
trenches, which her mom thought was excellent. "The site was clean, to the point, had nice colors to it, and
looked really professional," said Yvonne.
Camp Director Nathan Peck, a Computer Graphics and Web Design Professor at St. Xavier University in Chicago,
boasts, "On Monday, when Vera began class, I was showing her how to operate the mouse. By the end of the week
at Family Showcase, she was telling camp families and friends, very accurately, how to design websites. Vera not
only learned how to master web design, she clearly gained a great deal of confidence over the week, moving from
the sidelines of the playing field to center court during outdoor activity time, while making major steps
technically everyday."
After seeing the professional web design skills Vera had acquired, Yvonne hired her as a web designer for her
company, Philadelphia Urban Solutions, a health education, prevention, and outreach program geared towards youth
ages 12 to 20. The Urban Solutions website has a cartoon character mascot named Urban Man who lives in the city
and uses brain power to get by. Urban Man delivers certain life principles like friendship, loyalty, and integrity.
Vera's job is to write about the subject and create the site using that theme.
Vera is paid for her time working with her mother, just like Yvonne would have paid any other web designer to
maintain the site. "When Vera starts looking at colleges, it will be a unique gift to have web design skills
that will give her a competitive advantage." says Yvonne Jones. Of course, Yvonne is looking forward to
sending Vera's younger sister to iD Tech Camps.
How does Vera, who integrates web design in her class curriculum projects, feel about her knew found passion for
technology? "I learned a skill where I can gain respect and now earn extra money."
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