Some words that accurately describe Terrace senior Kien Trung are smart, hardworking, and outgoing.
Graduating high school in just a few days, Kien will go on to study computer science at the University of Washington, being one of only four students that got into UW for computer science this year.
His journey started out from relatively humble beginnings in eighth and ninth grade. In eighth grade, he joined Technology Student Association, a club that he would later become president of his senior year. However, his plans to go to the states were canceled due to COVID.
In ninth grade, when everything was online, Trung wasn’t involved in any clubs. However, he rejoined TSA in his sophomore year and quickly rediscovered his passion for the club, joining leadership for his junior year.
He said that without TSA and other commitments he might’ve been a better student, but a less interesting person overall. Additionally, he said, “I mean, obviously I’d be similar in some senses, but imagining I would be a slightly better student, because they would have a lot less on my plate, yeah, but I would also be a worse member of the community.”
He eventually became TSA president at Terrace, home of the largest TSA chapter in the state of Washington.
Additionally, because he was in leadership of a STEM club he became eligible to join STEM leadership, a club that is composed entirely of students who are in leadership positions of STEM clubs like TSA.

When asked what motivated him to join leadership positions, he said “Obviously, first there was some motivation for boosting my resume for college transcripts and such. But I think what started it off was TSA. I wanted to join… people like clubs, like really like the club, and I wanted to do something for the club, and being in leadership would be cool. So when I got in, I started doing that, and then I mean, from there, I started taking on more leadership positions. It’s kind of like a domino effect. If you’re in a leadership position in a STEM club. You’re eligible for the joint STEM leadership so I joined that as well.”
Asked about how TSA influenced his life, he said “I mean, obviously all the leadership accolades, I’ve also built a lot of friendships like Winston, got to know a lot of leadership members and a lot of people in the club, a lot of friends through that, I think that would be the biggest thing.”
Trung admitted that TSA changed who he was as a person. “I think, Well, for one, it’s made me better at speaking. Public speaking, at least it’s really flagged me in all the positions I’m in, forced me to start really having to develop that public speaking, or else I would have to essentially drown and not be able to do any things I do. Additionally, I think this also allowed me to help out people more,” he said. “I mean, yeah, like freshman, sophomore year, I wasn’t exactly introverted, but I was really only friends with people that I was friends with, I didn’t reach out to people. But after that, developing my public speaking skills and being in leadership, I’ve been able to be a bit more extroverted and reach out to more people.”
Asked about if he is excited for graduation, he said, “I’m psyched for [graduation] – I’m so done with high school… Graduation is a celebration of everything you can accomplish. It’s an exciting thing.”
In regards to what he’s looking forward to once he heads off to college, he said, “I have to say the schedule… colleges you can choose your schedule and you’ll start later. I think the worst thing I’ve ever dealt with is having to wake up so early.” On the flip side, Trung said that he’ll miss “A lot of social aspects. I mean, all my friends are leaving, and after high school, they’re going all over the country, some of them even out of the country. I’m also going to miss TSA, I miss going [to the state convention] every year in March.
Trung said that the accomplishment he was most proud of was getting into UW for computer science. He will be attending the University of Washington next fall, being one of two Terrace students enrolled for computer science at UW in the class of 2024. Due to the competitive nature of the program, he wasn’t sure whether or not he would get in.
Community-wise, he said his biggest accomplishment was probably his work with STEM outreach. “Overall, community wise, I think it would have to be the STEM outreach. I think we doubled the numbers. We went up to 120 STEM member sign ups this year, and I think last year, I can’t remember for sure, it was either 20 or 60, so we drastically increased it, and that was, according to Davenport, directly due to the stem outreach, with a lot of students noting that that was the reason they joined.” Asked if he thought his work on outreach would have a lasting impact, he responded with a simple “I do.”