The wind was rushing past my face as I fell faster and faster down towards the ground. Adrenaline coursed through my veins and I could feel my heart thumping out of my chest. As I looked down I could see the ground getting closer as I accelerated downward. All I could hear was the wind blowing past my ears. There was a sudden lurch I looked up to see the much-welcomed sight of a parachute. All of the chaos of free-falling was over just as quickly as it began and now I was peacefully floating 5,000 feet in the air. It’s crazy to think that just a minute early I was sitting with eager anticipation inside of a perfectly good airplane 15,000 feet above the Earth’s surface. Needless to say my first skydive was incredible and only strengthened my love and curiosity for aerospace. I want to work in the aerospace engineering industry developing and testing flight control equipment.
I have always had a strong curiosity about how things work. As a little kid I would always be taking things apart to try and discover the ‘mystery’ of how they worked and then attempt to rebuild them, which usually was a hopeless endeavor As I grew older my curiosity was intrigued by my interest for aerospace. What first started it off was the computer game microsoft flight simulator where I was in awe of all the different planes I was able to fly. These early experiences brought me to where I am today and are what pushes me to exceed in my studies and learn as much about aerospace as I can.
Currently I am pursuing my dream of aerospace engineering by studying at Purdue University, the alma mater of one of my personal heros, Neil Armstrong. Throughout my life I have developed great time management and organizational skills which have helped me succeed. In high school I took as many Advanced Placement (AP) classes as I could while still being involved in 2 sports as well as numerous other extra curricular activities. This pattern continued into college where I am a member of the fraternity Lambda Chi Alpha, completed 3 co-op rotations, and studied abroad in Madrid. I did all of this while playing for the Purdue club volleyball team (another passion of mine) as well as being involved in various other extra curricular activities.
Ever since I can remember I’ve been playing sports. I played basketball, volleyball, golf, baseball, and soccer. Being a part of a team has taught me how to work towards a common goal and has allowed me develop my communication and listening skills. It also has helped me learn some difficult lessons like how to put the needs of the team over my own and how to lose gracefully. These skills have helped me in group projects for school and will continue to help me as I start my career in the aerospace industry.
My experiences working at Gulfstream Aerospace corporation as a co-op have proved invaluable to my education and will provide me with a solid foundation of what to expect as I begin my career in the industry. While working at Gulfstream I learned about the ‘big picture’ and how the jobs that each specific department has are important to the final product. Seeing how all the different departments of the company work together gave me a strong appreciation for the amount of organization and synchronization that is required in order to successfully build an airplane. My time at Gulfstream also gave me lots of hands on experience working with industry standard applications such as CATIA (a 3-D modeling program I used to fast prototype flight control designs) and MATLAB (a numerical computing program I used to analyse and simulate various flight conditions). This hands on experience will greatly help me when I start working for an aerospace company.
I try to live my life with no regrets, this has motivated me to try and make the most out of my time in school and everyday in general. My desire to succeed is what pushes me to do the best I can and give 100 percent. My time at Purdue University has helped me develop and master the skills necessary for me to accomplish my goal of obtaining a job in aerospace engineering and having a successful career.
