Alberto is a fourth-year BOLD Scholar student from Naucalpan, a suburb of Mexico City, Mexico pursuing a computer science major and a computer engineering minor.
You originally were a mechanical engineering major. What led you to switch? I found myself preferring to code instead of having more hands-on stuff. I started taking free online courses from Harvard and just trying to dive deeper into the computer science field in general. Then one of my favorite teachers to this day was my teacher for CSCI 1300. She was an immigrant from Eastern Europe. So we had that connection of moving to the U.S. with a different culture and missing your family. My mom, my dad, my sisters, they all live back in Mexico. And after that, I just kept going through that path of taking as many CS classes as I could because the more CS classes I took, the more interested I became.
How was your experience playing on the Rugby Club team? I played rugby for two seasons. I got to meet people from other college here at CU and I think that opened up a lot of doors, a lot of business kids, a lot of kids studying history, philosophy all around because I mean, it's a club sport, so you get from freshmen to seniors and then having been in an organized sport, you just have that unity and that sense of belonging being part of. It gave me the confidence of feeling that I belonged here at CU and when you get to represent the school in some aspect or another, every time I put on the jersey that said CU Boulder, it gives you a sense of belonging and I think that's an experience that I should probably recommend everybody try it out.
Favorite part about CU Engineering? I would say just the people that I get to meet here - the faculty, the people. I think that's my favorite part of being in CU Engineering. Just the people that I get to meet and people I share classes with that have the same, oftentimes have the same mindset, the same goals of just working hard and just creating something. I really enjoy talking to creators.
What are future plans you’re looking forward to? I've been here for five years now and I have no real intention of moving back to Mexico, even though I still have my mom and dad back there and my sisters. I really enjoy the culture here regarding software development and computer science. The fact that everybody's out there trying to create something, I am really drawn to that. My plan for the future, at least for the next five years, is just to get a company that can sponsor my work visa, which that's the most important part, so I can join their team and potentially build something worthwhile.
