3. Freshman year at Dunbar High
School, the first Microsoft
certified school in the world.
I was in the technology program,
earning certifications.
4. When I took the PowerPoint 2010
certification test, I got a perfect score, 1000.
My proctor told me about the Microsoft
Office Specialist World Championship,
which tests students on their exceptional
knowledge of a certain Office program.
5. A month or so later, I also took
the Excel 2010 test, receiving a
975, a near-perfect score.
My proctor recommended
going for Excel 2010 instead of
PowerPoint 2010, since it was a
more challenging program.
6. For months, I trained in Excel 2010, learning the
program and making sure I could do the
certification test perfectly.
Come May of 2013, I learned that I qualified for the
national competition and if I won that, I would
proceed to the worldwide competition.
7. Certiport flew all the participants to Park
City, Utah for the competition.
The competition consisted of the
certification test and an interview.
I messed up on the certification test and
did alright during my interview.
During the award ceremony, I found out I
didn’t place.
9. My sophomore year, I was
determined to return to the
competition.
This year, I would be focusing on
PowerPoint 2007.
I trained even harder, making
sure I knew ALL the ins and outs
of the program and test.
10. Again, I qualified for the national competition.
This time it was in Atlanta, so we drove since we’re
from Florida.
This year, I aced the certification test and felt very
confident with my interview.
When awards rolled around, I was nervous, yet
confident, but still wasn’t sure how I would place.
They started calling the winners for my category and..
11. I won first place, advancing to the worldwide
competition!
12. Leading up the Microsoft Office Specialist World
Competition, Certiport assigned me a mentor to help
me study.
Every day leading up to it, I had an assignment I had to
work on.
I was also dealing with interviews, something I was
new to.
13. The competition in Anaheim, California
brought 126 competitors from 83
countries.
I met and became friends with not only
Americans, but people from around the
world.
The actual competition consisted of us
creating a PowerPoint following their
guidelines and adjusting it to look like
pictures they provided within 50
minutes.
I felt pretty confident after the test, but
used up all of my time.
14. During the award ceremony, nerves were rising as they
gave everyone their certificate of participation.
My category came first and they immediately started
calling off names.
3rd…
2nd…
My mom clutched my hand tight, my heart beating
like crazy...
1st…
15. It took me a second to realize they even called my
name, as I hear screams coming from all around me.
I go up on stage, happiest I’ve ever been, legs shaking,
knowing I was the first person from the United States
to ever win first in my category.
17. My junior year of high school is starting up
and I know I will be working on qualifying
again this coming year, but for Word 2010.
I’ll be pushing myself and others to try for
this because I know it can be done and my
drive is stronger than ever.