Please feel free to address me with any questions or concerns. I am a student at the University of South Florida (USF). In May of 2013 I will be receiving my Bachelor of Science in Civil and Environmental Engineering degree from USF; and come August 2013, I will be entering the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology or the Department of Mechanical and Aero
space Engineering at the University of Florida in pursuit of my PhD. I was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador in 1990 and journeyed to the United States in 2001. I spent the next 5 years in Denham Springs, Louisiana; a small town characterized by its cultural and ethnic homogeneity that resulted in the very unique experience of a Hispanic immigrant without a greater Hispanic network. Fast-Forward the next 7 years which I spent in Tampa, Florida and you’ll find me at on the verge of heading to Atlanta, Georgia or Gainesville, Florida with the hopes of spending my graduate career serving SHPE and thereby, the Hispanic community. I became a member of SHPE-USF in 2010 with the intent of getting involved in school and to be in an organization that could offer me the network and culture which I had been unable to experience since I left Ecuador. Little did I know that I had just joined the largest organization of Hispanic Technical Professionals in the country. I quickly learned the massive reach SHPE had, and upon my attendance to the National Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio that year, my reverence of SHPE solidified. In SHPE I saw proof of the notorious Hispanic population in the United States which I had never experienced. I saw an image of the Hispanic culture which was so much more representative of what it means to be Hispanic than the misconceptions held by my peers in Louisiana and some of my peers in Florida. Most importantly, I saw a venue through which our demographic thrived. The following years within SHPE-USF were defined by my continued involvement as a general member and an E-Board member; and at the 2012 National Conference in Fort Worth, Texas, they culminated with me leading our Academic Olympiad team to break the 7-year streak of the past region 7 winner into 1st place at the national level, among all 7 regions. At that conference, I also tied for 1st place in the Undergraduate Technical Paper competition. Through SHPE I have demonstrated a strong potential for personal achievement, exemplified by the results of the Undergraduate Technical Paper competition. I have bore responsibility, as the corporate chair for SHPE-USF, for tasks that not only I, but a whole team is counting that they be done. Most importantly, I have shown, through the Academic Olympiad, that I am capable of perhaps the most essential duty of a leader and comrade; which is the motivation and ability to pull those around you, up with you along the ladder of success. As your Regional Graduate Representative I’m prepared to perform up and beyond the standards set by those I’m representing, in my pursuit of personal achievement. Furthermore, I would also be fully aware of the inherent interdependence my performance will have on the rest of SHPE and its success. As a demographic, we are, in general, one of the poorest performing. So finally, I will take on my role pursuing the goal of pulling those around me up by promoting that as students, we need to strive for more than just good grades. As people, we need to live each day trying to make someone else’s day better. And as a demographic, we need to inculcate the value of higher education, particularly STEM, in our culture.
