Linda Nguyen

Linda Nguyen, D.D.S. General Dentist, Cerritos University of California at Los Angeles, 1998

If you were a college kid who liked to sing and you ended up spending the summer at Carnegie Hall, you might understand how Linda Nguyen and Stephanie Sun feel.

If you liked baseball and your summer job was to play with the Yankees, you'd get the idea.

You see, Nguyen and Sun are wrapping up a summer in IBM's Extreme Blue program. (Blue for IBM.Extreme for, well, extreme.)

The two college students from San Jose have spent the summer at the Almaden Research Center.
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And "pretty darn cool," as Nguyen puts it.

"I think that's where the fulfillment comes from in technology, making something that will be used," says Nguyen, 21, who is studying computer science at Cornell University."Something that will have an impact."

The internships are no doubt good for Nguyen and Sun, a 26-year-old MBA student at UCLA, and the 118 others.
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If you must know, Nguyen and Sun's team focused on a new way to slice up Web searches into very specific categories.Want to know what bloggers who appeal to the 18-to-24 demographic are saying about your product?Nguyen and Sun's effort can help.

And that's great, but what really excited me was the way they made it clear that this isn't the end -- not for technology, not for their ability to shape it and shape the world with it.

"From here," Nguyen says, "I think I could go anywhere."

Sure, both students have read about the faltering tech economy, about jobs moving overseas, about how the idea of inventing the future is losing its luster among students making career choices.Are they worried?

"I see a lot of signs that the economy is picking up," says Sun. (MBA, remember?) "There is more recruiting at business schools."

Oh sure, the women's world view includes a dose of post-boom realism.Nguyen remembers having a front row seat to the dot-com run-up while at Lynbrook High School.She remembers thinking that among other things, a technology career offered the promise of being able to retire at 30.

"Which is not something you can do anymore," she says.

But Nguyen and Sun's plans are not the plans of people worried about the future of technology or the economy.
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"I personally feel," says Nguyen, "that the possibilities are endless -- to use a cliche."

Go right ahead.