Roncalli High School’s No. 2 student had always been enamored with computers.
Collin Prince’s father gave him an old computer when he was a young child and the Bargersville resident spent his free time finding out how it worked.
And in junior high, he became obsessed with Apple and their technology products. He poured over the story of Steve Job’s life and decided he wanted to work in Silicon Valley.
Prince, who graduated from Roncalli High School as the school’s salutatorian, will head to University of California, Los Angeles this fall to study computer science and engineering. Ben Asdell is the school’s valedictorian.
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Prince chose the university because it has a strong computer science and engineering program and being in Los Angeles will put him on the pulse of the upcoming technical world and in the same state as Silicon Valley.
“Everything sort of lined up, and you can’t beat the weather,” he said.
After graduating college, he would like to get involved in a start up technology company, where he could take his own idea, work through the kinks and create a product that could be marketed to the masses.
He envisions his time in college working with other computer engineers to come up with ideas that they could begin programming and building. His idea will likely be a way to improve social media as a whole, Prince said.
Working with computers comes naturally, as the steps to engineer computer programming is logical and streamlined, which is the kind of thinking that appeals to Prince, he said.
“It just appeals to my problem solving,” Prince said. “It is just sort of abstract algebra.”
His way of thinking that has led to his love of computers is likely why he has excelled in school. He attended Saints Frances and Clare through elementary school and junior high. His test scores to enter Roncalli were among the top 10, earning him a scholarship to the southside private school. And last fall, he was named a National Merit Scholar semi finalist.
Good grades were something he always wanted, but placing near the top of his class was never a specific goal, Prince said.
“It was nothing I was ever focused on,” he said.
Instead, he decided to use his high school career to balance having fun, traveling and excelling in classes.
Prince studied abroad in Seville, Spain, where he was forced to use his Spanish speaking skills quickly. He lived with a 65-year-old Spanish woman who did not know a word of English.
“I had to figure out how to communicate with this woman,” he said.
Spanish class was one of Prince’s favorite and acted as an mental antidote to the math and engineering classes where he spent most of his school day, he said.
He decided to study abroad, where he loved visiting Madrid and eating in the capital’s restaurants and seeing the fashion in the city, Prince said.
High school for Prince was also spent helping organize events at the school as a member of student council and participating in the school’s Riley Dance Marathon.
Planning events as a member of student council appealed to his organized side, he said.
“It gave me a chance to do a leadership role,” Prince said. “I always made a lot of good friends doing it.”
Friday nights in winter were spent snow boarding with his friends who were in the ski club at school. The group of students piled into vans after school every Friday for months and drove to Perfect North where they would spend hours on the slopes.
The thought of the ski trip always got him through his school day, Prince said.
“Knowing you would get to snowboard with friends for five hours was awesome,” he said.
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Name: Collin Prince
Parents: Mark and Jan Prince
Residence: Bargersville
Achievement: Roncalli High School salutatorian
College: University of California, Los Angeles
Major: Computer science and engineering
GPA: 4.54
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