My final year at Cornell has been a great experience. As an early admit to Cornell’s Master of Engineering program, I was able to begin my Master’s in the spring while simultaneously finishing up my Bachelors. With a passion for entrepreneurship, I chose to get my Master’s in Mechanical Engineering with a concentration in design and robotics. For my one year project, I worked on a robot that uses machine learning to identify and recover plastic waste. I wanted to use the engineering skills that I’ve developed towards a meaningful project that can promote sustainability, and this project was a perfect fit. By the end of the year, I built an initial proof of concept and ran preliminary tests. After graduating with my Bachelors in the spring, I decided to stay at Cornell and continue to work in a research lab. I took this time to get ahead in my classes and to apply to jobs. I’m happy to say that I was able to secure an associate position at The Boston Consulting Group. As I finished up my Master’s in the fall, I knew that I wanted to pursue an MBA in the future. I want to combine my engineering skills with business to create my own start-up. I know that working as a consultant will prepare me for that and I am currently working to apply to Stanford’s MBA program. In these next few months until I begin my career, I plan to take some time to relax and travel. I want to visit the Galapagos Islands and tour Europe. I am beyond thankful for all of the support that MVYouth has given me throughout these past four years. Their support has been monumental to my academic success at Cornell, and I’m excited for life after college.
Andres Garcia - Cornell University
This past semester has been one of the most meaningful ones in my collegiate career. Earlier in the year, I joined Cornell’s Laboratory for Advanced Materials and Manufacturing where I designed and built two prototypes that induce ultrasonic vibrations to the additive manufacturing process. I learned a lot about the engineering design process, from creating 3D models to actually manufacturing each prototype. This fall, I was finally able to begin testing my prototypes in order to characterize their effects. My research experience has shown me how much I like to design and build machines and how important it is to further my education. After speaking with my advisor, I decided to apply to graduate school at Cornell.
Halfway through the semester, I got accepted into Cornell’s Master of Engineering Program as an early admit. I will be studying aerospace engineering with a concentration in design. I begin my master’s classes this coming spring and will be graduating with my advanced degree in the fall of 2023. Around the same time, I was also accepted into the Cornell Engineering Leadership Program. This is a year-long program that focuses on developing professional leadership skills through a hands-on project, multiple retreats, and two classes where I can practice these skills. Both of these programs will help me with my aspirations to one day hold a high-level position at an innovative aerospace company. This semester I chose to focus primarily on my academics. I attended many different networking events to speak with professors and industry advisors about the benefits of graduate school. Although it has been a challenging semester, it has also been a very rewarding one. All of this has been possible because of the support that MVYouth has given me. I am beyond thankful for everything that you have done.
Andres Garcia - Cornell University
Going back to a fully in-person campus was amazing because I was finally back to the same Cornell University from two years ago, before the pandemic. I was able to attend lectures with all of my friends and classmates present, spend more time on campus, attend office hours in person and actually converse with my TA’s without technical issues from zoom. Although the workload was a bit overwhelming at first, I quickly found my rhythm and was able to manage my time wisely. I felt that being able to physically attend my classes and having one on one conversations with professors helped me learn the material in a more in-depth way than before and it helped me think about my future. I realized that I want to learn more about computer science and hope to find an internship that can combine mechanical engineering with computer science. I plan on focusing more of my time next semester on networking in order to build connections so that I can find such a job or even do research at Cornell or another university over the summer.
I was able to reconnect with so many people whom I lost touch with over the pandemic. I spent most of my time at my fraternity house, everyone wanted to pick up where we left off last semester and have the best possible time. We organized many social events and even attended a Patriots/Bills game as a house. I loved having something that could distract me from school when I felt overwhelmed and it was something that I missed last year. Despite the Covid outbreak that happened the last two weeks, having the first three months feel normal proved that we can handle this pandemic and I can’t wait to go back in the spring.
Andres Garcia - Cornell College
This fall semester at Cornell has certainly been an interesting one to say the least. In late August, Cornell is usually filled with life. Everyone’s out meeting new people, going swimming in lakes, living stress-free until classes start. I should’ve been in training camp preparing for the incoming football season. Sadly, this wasn’t the case. There was no football season and although we could interact with new people, it was a very different experience. However, I was able to focus more on my academics than I normally would and decided to take six classes. I never thought I’d take that many classes in one semester, but it’s proven to be very helpful. I plan on getting a minor in business, so I took an asynchronous marketing class to get started on that. I also took a junior level class so that I can have a less stressful fifth semester and also to be able to focus more on my football season next year. Although we weren’t able to have a football season this year, the silver lining is that now I have an extra year of eligibility for football. I realized that I want to play as much collegiate football as I can, so my current goal is to be able to take a graduate year at Stanford and play football, once I graduate from Cornell. This will certainly be a challenge, but I’m confident that through consistently pushing myself and working hard, I can do it. This semester was very significant. It gave me time to think about what I wanted to do after Cornell, and now I have more time to focus on my goals, both physically and academically. I am grateful for all of the support that MVYouth has given me, especially throughout these challenging times.
Andres Garcia - Cornell College
My first semester at Cornell was a tough one, but it was well worth it. At first, I struggled the most with time management. It was hard to find a balance between school and sports. My classes were tough and the professors would cover the material very quickly. On weekdays, I’d have football meetings in the mornings and practices in the afternoons. On top of that, we had games on Saturday and lifts/conditioning on Sundays. Overall, I was spending well over 20 hours a week with football and studying the rest of the time. While football was a huge commitment, they also gave me resources to help us stay on top of our classes. We had mandatory study halls that helped me get my work done and we were offered free tutoring. Once I started taking advantage of the resources available to me I started doing better in my classes. Through sports I was also able to make a lot of great friends and connections that also helped me get through this first semester. I would often be in one of the townhouses studying either Chemistry and Calculus with friends or just laying back and enjoying the brief moments of free time that we had. If someone had told me, a year and a half ago, that I would be a running back at Cornell I wouldn’t have believed them. Being able to play football at the collegiate level while also studying at an Ivy League school has been the best experience of my life, it’s hard to describe just how amazing these last few months have been. I am truly thankful for MVYouth and all of the support that I’ve received, I wouldn’t be in the same position I am in if it hadn’t been for you.