Victoria's Secret? Brainy Is The New Sexy

We’ve all seen a Victoria’s Secret model and most likely had some opinion on her body, and maybe even her brains. Maybe we’ve even secretly thought that the model we were looking at had no brains. If you happened to be looking at Lyndsey Scott, you would have been very wrong.

Scott studied theater and computer science at Amherst college, earning her degree in 2006. Since then, she has been secretly living two lives. One life as a high fashion model, and the other as a computer programmer.

In her modeling life, she has walked the runway for companies such as Louis Vuitton, Vera Wang, Victoria’s Secret, Prada, and even Calvin Klein where she was the first African American to receive an exclusive runway contract.

In her computer programming life, she has gained a huge following on the programmer site StackOverflow. She’s well versed in several programming languages, and has created apps ranging from Educate! which allows users to donate to an education program in Africa, and iPort which allows actors and models to digitize their portfolio.

Scott admits to keeping her two lives as separate as possible. When she’s working as a coder, she does not mention her modeling experience and her modeling portfolio does not list her programming credentials. She has indicated that she understands that this is how these industries work. You wouldn’t find a photo of a programmer on their resume, just like you wouldn’t see a GPA listed in a model’s portfolio.

She’s currently working on a networking app that should be in the iTunes store next month. We’ll have to wait and see if he latest app will be the next Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. Scott has said it will combine both personal and professional networking.

No matter which industry Scott works in, one thing is for sure, she’s breaking the stereotype we have of both models and computer geeks. For that, I thank her. She’s a great role model for young women and shows how following all your dreams can lead you to success.