Azalea Colburn and her passions for programming, politics, and changing the world | Humans of Catlin Gabel

By Harper Davis ‘24

Photo courtesy of Azalea Colburn.

Sophomore Azalea Colburn is known for her technical thinking, passionate political discourse, and creative capabilities. I sat down with her to find out more about her life.

Colburn has lived in Portland, Ore. her whole life and came to Catlin Gabel School (CGS) in ninth grade. She has four older half-siblings. “The oldest one is 43, and the youngest one is 28. They’re kind of scattered all over the country,” said Colburn.

Colburn said her friends would probably describe her as “really hyper-focused on programming and school.”

“I think they would probably say that I don't have enough fun and that I analyze things really, really, really deeply,” said Colburn.

“I'm always talking about politics, or some book I read, or something about my programming,” said Colburn. “I never talk about anything small. I always jump to really huge philosophical or technical concepts. And I think it … puts a lot of people off. They're like, could she ever talk about something that, like, people want to talk about?”

Colburn has many interests, perhaps most prevalently computer science. “I have a hobby, comp-sci. It’s a problem. It’s actually a genuine problem,” joked Colburn.

In her free time, Colburn works on both school and non-school coding projects. “When I program for a class or for robotics, I do it at my desk. When I do it for my own personal enjoyment, I will usually go to a bubble tea shop.”

Colburn has been working on a special compiler, a type of computer program that creates other computer programs, and has participated in both the American Computer Science League (ACSL) and the International Obfuscated C Code Contest (IOCCC), “which is all about doing something in the C programming language, in a difficult to understand, subversive, way,” said Colburn.

“I hate every programming project that I finish. I love projects until I finish them and then I think they're terrible and I could do them way better,” elaborates Colburn. “I see computer science as a massive puzzle, like a puzzle that you build yourself. It's really cool. It's like art and puzzle-solving mixed together. And to me, that's really beautiful.”

Colburn also shared her interesting philosophy about video games. “I have one hour a week allocated for video games,” said Colburn, and I inquired if this was by choice. “This is a personal thing. I do this, not because I want to limit the amount of time I play video games, but because I want to get myself to play video games. It kind of resets my thinking. It helps me decompress. It's like taking a cold shower or something like that.”

One of Colburn’s biggest inspirations is CGS ‘16 alum and MIT graduate Cel Skeggs, whom she has been in correspondence with for around a year. “They’re also a queer student like I am, they’re really into computer science, they now work at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and they went to MIT,” listed Colburn, “all things that would be incredible for me to do. Not sure if I could, but yeah, they're my inspiration and I've learned a lot of great insights about the world.”

Colburn is also deeply captivated by both politics and civil engineering. “Public transit is awesome. I love public transit. I really like trains. I like subways. I like buses. I think they're not only great environmentally, they're great socially. They can encourage people to see each other, and communicate with each other.” In fact, Colburn’s favorite bubble tea shop, Portal Tea (formerly Tea Chai Te), is in a remodeled train caboose.

A trip to Europe, specifically Copenhagen, Denmark, piqued Colburn’s interest in civil engineering. “They're a very bikeable city and a very walkable city. And there's this one photo of this highway that used to go through Copenhagen and now it's like this waterfront boardwalk.”

The once-highway, København K, Denmark. Photo by Harper Davis.

“This is gonna sound odd. I think I value beauty a lot. I don't mean people being beautiful. I mean, like the world being laid out in a beautiful way, you know? I like beautiful code. I like beautiful cities.” said Colburn.

Colburn explained, “I think aesthetics are really important in a society. I think if people have to live in a place where they can walk around and see nature and see things in a beautiful light, they can be more inspired. I think that's a really important thing that we often overlook, in political advocacy, there's a lot of policy, and people talk a lot about wealth redistribution, stuff like that. I think that's important.”

“But I also think people like having really nice places to walk around and live and experiencing the world is really important. I think that's one of the things as a society we've kind of neglected is how people experience the world,” said Colburn.

I asked Colburn what wish she had for the world. “I would wish for the world to become a fully engaged democracy. You know, where people are interested in being involved in the democratic process, and where people are educated about democracy and about things like that. I think if people had the opportunity to be more engaged, they would.”

One thing Colburn struggles with is balancing social interactions. “I think I struggle socially a bit. One problem I have is that a lot of the people who I share interests with, I'm not super good friends with and a lot of people who I am better friends with, I don't share interests with. It's a shame because I always feel like I'm kind of caught between two groups. I don't have a group that I work with perfectly or, like, super all around, and that's a really big struggle for me,” admitted Colburn.

Colburn received valuable advice from Skeggs regarding her struggles. “One piece of advice I got from Cel was to focus more on relationships and people, and less on academics and projects and stuff. I think that's really good advice. I don't think I'm taking it as well as I could,” said Colburn.

In turn, Colburn provided her advice for future ninth-graders. “Do what you’re interested in, and be really open to explore things that you like, and to spend time doing what you enjoy. And I think if you're more willing to spread out and try your interest and try a bunch of different things you might be interested in, you'll find something that you're willing to spend a lot of time on that you truly enjoy.”

Finally, Colburn looks optimistically at her future in high school. “I hope to have graduated high school with relatively good grades. I hope to have found a sense of accomplishment in the work outside of school that I do. I think when people finish high school and all that they've created is just like good grades can be very unfulfilling. I think having created something that I can look back on would be really nice. I think I've done that already. But I think I could do that a lot more.”