Come Ready, Leave Prepared

Transcript

All right, everyone fasten your seat belt, here we have Dhruv, he’s on the Penn College Baja team and a senior majoring in automotive technology management. Dhruv’s gonna tell us how he found his way to Penn College and the lineup of supportive services that are here to help him and other students stay focused and on track. Take it away Dhruv.

– Hey y’all, and thanks Alex. Growing up I always wanted to work on cars. The dream is to open and run my own shop. When I heard about PCTs, accredit of automotive management program, I jumped at the opportunity. The two plus two program allowed me to get my associate’s degree back home and transfer my credits to PCT to get my bachelor’s degree. Being away from home was a huge change for me. And I spent a lot of time adjusting to being on campus. The staff in school has done a lot to make that transition easier with the help to resources such as the LEAP Center. There, they assigned counselors who will guide you through your first year. Because of the support from the college, a number of opportunities on campus opened up to me and I became more involved. My two biggest contributions here are my work in the tutoring center and my involvement in the Baja SAE club as a treasurer. The Baja club is an amazing organization on campus, where students from different majors like manufacturing, automotive and welding come together to accomplish something incredible. We design and manufacture a single seater off-road buggy and race in an international competition sponsored by SAE. I’m in charge of making sure that the vehicle is ready for the races. This includes everything from ensuring that vehicle will pass tech inspection, making sure the drivers have the proper safety gear, packing the necessary tools and managing the pits during events and repairing the vehicle as needed. We compete against colleges from around the world. My experiences here at Penn College have helped me develop as an individual. The connections I’ve made and the opportunities I’ve had, have helped me get one step closer to my end goal of owning a shop. Throwing it back to you Alex.

– Oh man, wish I had Baja at my college, what a fantastic idea. Having students from different majors put their skills and minds together to achieve a common goal tearing around the track on race day, sounds pretty fun too. Keep up the great work Dhruv, and thanks again for sharing your story.