International Affairs graduate Molly Ricks of Macon, Georgia, is following in many family members’ footsteps when she crosses the Commencement platform on May 6.

Not only did her father graduate with a degree in industrial engineering, but her four older siblings also earned degrees from Georgia Tech. She’s the fifth of 11 children, and so far, all of the children in her family have gone to Tech.

Even though she wasn’t interested in pursuing engineering, she learned from her older sister that liberal arts had a science and technology flavor at Georgia Tech that would serve her well in the marketplace.

“Tech was really a great school to get a liberal arts degree from, and you can really set yourself apart with a liberal arts degree from Georgia Tech.”

She followed a passion for Mandarin Chinese language classes into the International Affairs program. She was able to study abroad in Beijing, China. In fact, it was her study abroad experience that her led her to participate in the signature student innovation competition, InVenture Prize.

She and her friend, Ali Abid, a computer science major also studying in China, were both trying to learn to play guitar. Together they developed FretWizard, an app that uses artificial intelligence to visualize the fingerings for guitar parts, which made it to the InVenture Prize finals in 2016.