Undergraduate Research Opportunities

Transcript

Okay, next we’ll meet Tromance, a senior engineering management major from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. At St. Mary’s, all engineering majors create a senior design project to show what they have learned and how their project can help the world. Getting to that point takes the professors taking an interest in developing each student’s potential. Tromance, let’s hear all about it.

– Well, thank you Alex for the introduction. Growing up, I wanted to do everything my imagination led me to. When it came to choosing colleges, I had this dream of being at one college and having a platform to be who I wanted to be, a college that had the resources to produce the future outcomes of what the world can be. That college in my dream was St. Mary’s University. Growing up in Wisconsin and being the son of a single mother came with hurdles. Resources were scarce but St Mary’s helped me overcome those hurdles. On my first day of programming class, we were asked, how many programming languages does everyone know? I was the only one who didn’t know any. My professor came to me and said, “I will promise you by the end of this course you will know three and have mastered one.” That professor was just a taste of how much St Mary’s invest in one’s personal growth overall. An engineer’s main objective is to problem solve and right now there is a major problem on our hands, COVID-19. Our senior design project can make an impact on COVID-19 and display the future of technology. This project’s objective is to make individual hand sanitizer dispensers at the San Antonio Airport send a signal when it is close to empty, positively impacting hand hygiene and helping decrease the spread of illnesses. St. Mary’s taught me not only the fundamentals to obtaining a job offer, but the tools to build upon the person I want to be in the future. As my days at St. Mary’s are coming to an end, I can say I’ll be the first in my family to obtain a degree and also I’ll be the first engineer as well with a few offers to choose from before I even graduate. The main goal of engineering is to solve problems of humans’ day to day life by creating some form of technologies to solve issues. This goal of engineering led me to be very passionate on my project and its impact on COVID-19. That’s my story. Back to you, Alex.

– What an accomplishment Tromance to have multiple job offers before you even graduate. That is so impressive. It sounds like the hands on experience at St. Mary’s has made all the difference for you and your aspiration. Thanks again and congratulations.