Kyla Coles

Kyla Coles is from Fredericksburg, Virginia, and a junior in Computer Engineering with a focus on CyberSecurity and Networking. She has a 3.44 GPA and she says the best thing about being a Virginia Tech Engineering student is being a part of a welcoming and supportive community. She loves how all of her peers, professors, and advisors have always been supportive and how they all want to see everyone succeed. Now that she is at Virginia Tech, she dreams about working for the intelligence community and being able to contribute to the United States’ critical mission in the cyber field. If Kyla could change one thing, she would change the amount of hate and wars in the world.

When she was in middle school, she dreamt of being in the medical field. Kyla played basketball year-round on a travel team and experienced many sports-related injuries including an ACL injury going into her freshman year of high school. So back then, she said she used to be interested in the medical field. To that extent, she used to volunteer at her local hospital back home in Fredericksburg.  However, as a current Virginia Tech student, she was involved in Hypatia Living Learning Community as a freshman and she is currently a member of NSBE, CyberVT, and IEEE. In her free time, she enjoys working out, playing basketball, traveling, and playing video games. 

Kyla mentioned that one of her role models is Kobe Bryant. She says she has always loved and tried to model his strong work ethic and his ‘Mamba Mentality.’ One other reason is that he was a big advocate for Women’s Sports and also inspired younger generations to go after their dreams. Kyla’s favorite film is the Divergent series and her favorite cartoon character is Jerry from Tom and Jerry because she likes how clever and scheming Jerry is when escaping from Tom the Cat.