Cumulative Reflection

As my time at Iowa State ends, I look forward to my future and back at my path which
has brought me here. My path, starting in 2017, did not go exactly as planned when I first
transferred here, however the journey is more important than the destination in many
situations. Taking a break in 2020 allowed me to determine truly that I wanted to be an
engineer, and coming back a year and a half later wiser and having more ambition to achieve
my goal allowed me to get to where I am today.

I first came here during the Spring semester of 2017, with about a year of credits under
my belt from a community college. Immediately, I was enrolled in technical courses and knew
that I wanted to be an electrical engineer. I also wanted to minor in computer science, but soon
gave that up as I realized that electrical engineers could take computer engineering courses and
have it applied towards their degree.
Time progressed and I found myself becoming burnt out from working too much and
attending school, my GPA was dwindling. I chose to take a semester off, which ended up
turning into three semesters. During that time, I worked many different jobs, all not being right
for me until I landed an internship position at a solar manufacturer here in Ames, called
Powerfilm Solar, doing microcontroller programming. This reignited the fire for me to return to
school and propelled me to where I am today.
Being able to apply my knowledge of engineering towards something outside of
academia really assisted me in realizing engineering was my true path. It has enabled me to
decide on an electrical engineering path, that being control systems engineering, that I was
unsure of before. I have taken many different courses. Dipping my toes into VLSI and
semiconductor research, however I did not have the strongest interest in either of them even
though taking the courses has deepened my understanding of what is truly going on inside an
integrated circuit.
I would not be where I am today without my friend group, some of whom I met through
the dorms when I first came, others I met at clubs like 3D printing club. They were all extremely
supportive of me coming back to school and would assist me with my courses when they could,
just like I would assist them when I could. In addition to my friends, my coworkers who had
been through the electrical engineering program also assisted me throughout my courses, even
if it was something as simple as venting about how difficult a class was.
My employment at Powerfilm solar really changed my perspective of myself and would
not have been possible without the previous courses I had taken at Iowa State, specifically
EE230 and CPRE288. I went from believing I had little talent to being valued at a company for
the work I really enjoyed doing. Being valued led me to research ideas that I could do to
improve the company, which led to being more valued.
 My return to Iowa State came with a change in perspective, but also a change in
academic habits. I spent more time on school than work, which I was able to do because my
employer understood how much work being a student in engineering is. I realized I had
difficulties working on things at home, especially when my roommates were home, so I opted
to go to the library or the TLA to work on assignments. This improved both my efficiency in
learning time, and overall academic performance.
As I stated earlier, my time at Iowa State was far from typical, however there is not one
single path that is right for everybody. My time was very formative to the person I am today,
and I am extremely thankful for it. I look forward to my future, where I will apply what I have
learned at Iowa State and the continuation of learning throughout my career and life.