September 2017

I think one of the biggest things Rensselaer has taught me is that there is no equal to having dedication and drive and doing hard work. Not that I was a lazy student when I came here, but if you’re the kind of person who finds high school kind of easy, the value of hard work probably isn’t there yet. But the challenge of the coursework at Rensselaer forced me to raise my game to a new level and made me realize how hard work can get you where you want to go. I firmly believe you can achieve anything if you work hard enough.

And that’s the other thing. When I came to Rensselaer, my intentions were to pursue nuclear energy as a solution to pollution. 

But my research and internships really broadened my perspective of what you can do with nuclear engineering. It’s not just about building and managing power plants. There are opportunities in health care and big data and space exploration. All kinds of things. So my ambitions have turned from directly supporting nuclear energy at a power plant level, to entering Rensselaer’s B.S.-Ph.D. program and trying to make an impact on the cutting edge of nuclear technology. Whether I end up at a research university or national lab or even a startup, I want to be pushing the boundaries of what we know about nuclear engineering and what we can do with that knowledge.”