Submission Number: 255
Submission ID: 961
Submission UUID: b8132e21-b453-4c1e-9954-e2e43448f78d

Created: Fri, 04/15/2022 - 13:27
Completed: Fri, 04/15/2022 - 13:27
Changed: Thu, 05/08/2025 - 10:39

Remote IP address: 2600:387:1:813::26
Submitted by:Anonymous
Language: English

Is draft: No

Locked: Yes
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Stephanie
Ressel
they/them
Biloxi
Mississippi
United States
39532
Aerospace Engineering
English (5), French (2)
I was thirteen years old the first time I’d visited my mother’s family in the Philippines. She’d always told me that she grew up poor, but to what extent, I could never imagine. When I saw the people who shared with me my face and eyes, I felt detached from them as I could not share their adversity- the severe poverty and deprivation that overwhelmed parts of the Philippines. The very culture that was supposed to be somewhere in my core, I never felt more disconnected from than in that moment. I felt helpless, knowing there was little I could do to support them. As an individual, I was powerless to mend the injustices overseas; rather, my power rested within my own community.
Back at home, a similar ongoing crisis existed among my community- food insecurity. Mississippi has always been notorious for having the highest poverty rate in the United States. My community was no exception. Personally, having friends whose families relied on food pantries, I knew it was my calling to be a part of positive change for my community and give back to the friends that have given me so much. With the help of my friends, we were able to establish our school’s first Sandwich Club and began work. We sold sandwiches to students at our school, donated the proceeds to local homeless shelters, and specially prepared sandwiches for our local soup kitchens. The most memorable part of the experience was meeting the hidden gems of my community whose lives and stories encapsulate life in the South like no other. Stories of great floods, soul foods, casinos, and Sunday worship gave me a sense of well-being. Listening to the lives from under the train bridge, I hear my cousins tell their tales of tribulations and adventures.
Although an oversimplification of the human psyche, I like to believe that you are an average of the five people you spend the most time around. Nowhere is this philosophy more true than in a residence hall. Minds full of buzzing ideas, ambitions, and aspirations harbor competition and intellectual conversations that carve new perspectives in the lenses of burgeoning engineers. There is not much I can say in detail about the ideal individual that I would want living down the hall from me other than the keystone elements that are comprised in the heart of engineering– creativity, pioneering, camaraderie. The truth is, I want to be able to learn from my hallmates. The unique talents that I am yet to discover or the life experiences I am yet to exchange are just some of the elements of uncertainty that I want to embrace.
Staring into the cold abyss of the night sky, I've always known that I wanted to be part of something larger than myself and contribute to the world in ways that would outlive me— being part of the researchers that solve tomorrow's problems. At the same time, I must lead and leave the world better than I found it. It's imperative to contribute to the solutions of the future through researching and developing ways to fight climate change, immersing myself in a diverse, inclusive community of scholars, and paving the way to a better understanding of the world so that our descendants can prosper. For the last seven months, I've surrounded myself with fascinating elements of astrophysics, produced graceful geographic trends from my data, and pushed my way into the scholarly conversation of particle physics and meteorology. Being surrounded by the incredibly bright and competitive engineering students of CU Boulder allow more of these conversations to flourish in ways of unlimited perspectives. Outside the structure of lecture, students can come together to collaborate, tutor, and aid each other through the frustrations and obstacles they share through their common majors.
In my experience as the only female in my engineering courses throughout middle school and high school, learning how to work with people that saw me as less intelligent or working twice as hard to make my voice heard was a vital skill in staying afloat in my male-dominated field. A combination of being spoken over for most of my early life and living with a language barrier between me and my family in the Philippines, naturally, I've mastered the expertise of patience and understanding more than just spoken language. This patience later became an integral element to my position as a math and physics tutor. Being a member of the Global Engineering RAP, I would be able to provide my peers a friend, listening ear, and mentor.
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