There’s a new programmer in town and she plans to bring the next hottest games to the streets. Watch out Playstation, freshman Taylor Jackson is your new competition.

Since before the age of seven, Jackson has loved video games and she told her parents that she wanted to take programming classes. Her parents then enrolled her in a programming class, but she quickly realized the difficulty of programming and took a break from her dream for a while. “I couldn’t figure out how to code, and I got stuck on one of the lessons, so I quit,” Jackson said. She would later return when she was around 11 to take a swing at programming again.

Jackson said that she doesn’t have any specific gamer role models because “I don’t really like to follow anyone. I want to do my own thing and not try to succeed over someone doing their own thing.” She is the only one who works on her games, but she listens to suggestions from her friends for ideas about what to make next.

So far, Jackson mostly only makes text-based games, but she plans to make games with video effects soon. She also would like to make an app or an online flash game.  “I usually start working at my games for like a few weeks at a time, then I’ll take a break and then go back to making games,” Jackson said.

Although Jackson is spending long nights working on her craft, this honor roll student refuses to let her schoolwork slide. Her first semester English teacher, Christopher Smith, described her as a “great student, on time everyday, ready to work, on task and focused.”  When she has free time in her schedule, Jackson works on perfecting her current game.

“[Jackson] is a really good and diligent student,” engineering teacher Edward Graf said. “She has expressed an interest in engineering and is working on programming robots in my POE class.”

Jackson does not plan to be a professional game programmer. “This is mostly like my own hobby right now,” she said. “But if the opportunity comes up to [have a profession in programming], yes I would take it.”