My college experience started in the Fall of 2018 at the University of Iowa, I was studying as a

Computer Science and Engineering major and I didn’t even make it through the first semester. I

moved back to my hometown and worked at a gas station before receiving an olive branch from

the Iowa DNR. They offered me a Summer internship as a natural resource aide. That Fall, I

returned to school as an Engineering student at Kirkwood Community College and spent the

next two years there, working as an RV detailer and as a Summer road survey intern for Linn

County, Iowa. I have only been a student at Iowa State for two years, and most of my adult

learning experiences came long before my time here. These experiences were my rock bottoms,

like dropping out of college and sleeping in my car for months. But my time at Iowa State has

built me up, I have become a much more confident person during my time here, and this is

where I have experienced my greatest academic achievements.

I had three lab courses during my first semester at Iowa State, and up to that point, I had never

been in a comparable lab atmosphere. So I was taken aback at how intensive the lab

assignments were; many took a partner and me over twenty hours a week. For this specific lab,

C programming, we learned very quickly that we would need help to succeed, so we bought a

massive book on the C language and had the internet, thankfully. Without these resources, we

wouldn’t be able to explain how a pointer works or how to implement it, these resources didn’t

save us any time, but we learned and retained all of that knowledge.

Outside of class, I didn’t involve myself in any clubs or learning opportunities related to

Electrical Engineering. Instead, I prefer to spend time on my hobbies, which include gardening

and working on vehicles. I worked as an Electrical Engineering intern during the Summer of

2022, which was extremely helpful in preparing me for the following school semester. This
builds on the idea of being a lifelong learner; if we don’t supplement our prior understanding,

we are bound to forget much of what we have learned. Professors at Iowa State have preached

being a lifelong learner to me since my first day here. And my internship experience supports

that as I spent a Summer programming in VHDL, Java, and Python, culminating in having the

strongest semester of my college career. Finally, the idea of being a lifelong learner is so crucial

because once we graduate, we will work for forty years without taking another college class, so

we all must stay up to date with our learning.

While taking Integrated Electronics at Iowa State, I built a temperature sensor as a final project.

The temperature sensor required a discrete circuit component to be temperature dependent, so

I tried to use BJTs and Diodes, but I settled on solely Diodes, and it worked. But I noticed that

the output Voltage didn’t change enough from 0 to 100 C. So I thought about a lecture from Dr.

Randall Geiger where he showed us the effects of temperature on Diodes, it is small but not

negligible, and I thought about it. My solution was to add more Diodes in series with the

original to create a larger voltage swing for every temperature change. One by one, I added

Diodes, and my simulations began to prove my theory right. Eventually, I had 7 Diodes in series,

and the circuit provided the needed characteristics, which would have been impossible without

Dr. Geiger’s lecture.

Every day I spend at Iowa State, I learn something new. Often, it has nothing to do with

Electrical Engineering. I have learned more about being a well-rounded adult and respecting

people than anywhere else. My leadership abilities have grown dramatically as I care about my

peers’ success as much as my own. I am genuinely grateful to have spent the last two years as a

Cyclone.