Experiences

Employment Experiences

I have been "working" since I was in Kindergarten. Though, it was more of a glorified babysitting at first, my step-dad had me help restock oil filters at his car maintenance shop. He paid me a grand total of $3 for my "labor" every time I would help, though it was more of a lesson than a job. I'm very thankful for this experience because it taught me the value of money from a relatively young age compared to a lot of people. Being so young, I had no desire to buy anything, and therefore I would just save the money. I believe this contributed to my attitude towards money today, being generally conservative with it. This paired with my attitude towards efficiency likely is part of what inspired me to own my business. Tragically, before my Spring 2024 semester, I had to minimize working there regularly because my schedule simply didn't allow for it, and it became difficult to justify a 90 minute round trip for 30 minutes of work and $20 every week, so this signified the breaking of one of the longest traditions I have routinely done.

In summer of 2021, I started my first "real job" at Comcell Community Telephone. Though it was just a summer job, the experiences I learned there were truly invaluable. I learned a healthy mix of both practical/handyman skills and technical knowledge. I installed fiber optic and wireless internet as well as built fences, painted garage doors, landscape upkeep, etc. This summer taught me how to interact with coworkers as well and contributed to my general knowledge of how the real world works. The following summer, I would be an inventory manager, and continue this part-time throughout my senior year of high-school, and go back for one more summer before college started. As an inventory manager, I learned more about the logistical side of things, and the infrastructure on how the whole system operated. It was definitely a unique learning experience, and no doubt affirmed my love for technology.

Small Business Owner

In late May of 2020, I assembled my very own desktop computer. At the time I didn't fathom that it would have a huge impact, but I really enjoyed the process so extensively that the seeds for doing it as a business were planted. One year later, I would randomly brainstorm a name and design my logo and thus create my very own small business. While it sounds very simple, it was anything but. I had an extremely hard time getting off the ground, not to mention the hours upon hours I had already invested into multiple aspects of the business. Getting my name out there was the hardest part, but thankfully, I had multiple connections and they could eventually spread the word. I got my first big job almost a year later, in early May of 2022 for the City of Bowie Water Treatment Plant. I felt so official, even having to fill out a W9 document. Of course, jobs were intermittent, and you could hardly call my business successful, though it did finish that year with a profit. These 2 years really taught me the idea that large-scale success is not immediate, and will always require more effort than you first expect.

For the year of 2023, my business was nearly 3 times as successful in terms of documented jobs, and I have learned much more about the grand scheme of operating something like a small business in the real world. Unfortunately, since college has started, the flame has all but died out. I still extend my technical knowledge to those in need and get the odd job here and there, but the upkeep has been too much to handle. Ultimately, this grand and unique experience taught me qualities such as patience as well as more useful knowledge on aspects of life such as taxes and financial management.

High School Experiences

Going to such a small school, there was a very unique social and academic dynamic happening every day. We as students got to do much more than a typical class would, like build on pond on campus (Detailed below). There were also school events that students got to play such a big part in because of how few of us there were. For example, Celebration is an event which consists of several musical acts. During my senior year, I participated in the sound management as well as over 25% of the acts. This definitely contributed to my ability to multitask as well as perform in front of a crowd. Additionally, being such a small school, until we inducted new members, myself and my best friend were the only National Honor Society members during our senior year. We were able to organize a canned food drive with the help of our coordinator, and it was a whopping success (Pictured).

During my Junior year of high-school, we took on a year long campus beautification project as a class: The installation of a pond with a waterfall feature. With a tiny budget (that was definitely overrun), we all dug a hole, cemented it and built a fairly improvised waterfall. This was far from professional level work, but it nonetheless was a meaningful experience that would leave a lasting impact on my high-school. Ultimately, the pond would be a hassle to maintain throughout summer, and the Aquatic Science teacher we built it under would move schools. Since I have graduated, I am not sure of the current state of the pond, but to my knowledge, it's being mildly maintained and even improved upon.

National Model UN 2024

Becoming part of the NMUN team in Fall 2023, and competing in Spring 2024 was one of the more interesting experiences I was lucky enough to have in my first year of college. NMUN is an annual competition that MSU competes in with a small team of 12-16 people whose goal is to roleplay as the United Nations delegates for a certain country. This team is split up into groups of two, who each get their own committee and must prepare by familiarizing themselves with the country and its culture. Additionally, each committee must write a position paper over 2 provided topics that the UN would likely take on and try to solve. All of this preparation is required to participate in a week long competition in New York City where delegates coordinate with others from different schools (a surprising amount of which are not within the U.S.) which are representing different countries. Delegates work to solve one of the 2 major issues put forth by making resolutions with other like-minded countries. This is accomplished within 8 sessions which last 2-3 hours each. There are also special voting ceremonies where each plenary session (one of two major groups) gets to vote on a resolution from each committee. The competition is then capped off with a closing ceremony in the actual United Nations General Assembly building, which in itself is a unique experience, as well as one last hoorah with a "Delegate Dance" which is a lot less formal than you are thinking. It is more rave style and all of the volunteer staff are also there, so it's genuinely surreal seeing everybody that you were all formal and diplomatic with bouncing up and down to music in a thick crowd. 

While all of that is for the competition, getting to experience NYC in the downtime definitely makes for good stories. I could easily write a whole essay on my first trip alone, and in fact, I did which can be found here. But to sum it up, that was my first ever time in the Big Apple, and everything I did was practically a first for me, such as riding the subway or seeing rats that are a foot long. Of course, we visited some big name places such as Times Square, Grand Central Station, Central Park, even seeing the Empire State Building. The competition was also unique. We were representing Portugal for the 23-24 competition, and I was on the ECOSOC (Economic and Social) committee which dealt with issues pertinent to economic and social needs. Of the two topics, my specialization was relating to food insecurity, and luckily enough, that was the topic that got picked. We deliberated over this topic for every day of the competition. I believed I was a strong player, becoming apart of 3 working groups (who each work on their own paper) and eventually facilitating a merger between all 3. We did great, and we ended up winning the 2nd highest award as a school. Overall, this experience is nothing short of life-changing. Getting to experience so many new things was just something that is irreplaceable, and I definitely plan on continuing to do it for the following years. 

DMA Field Trip 2024

One of the many unexpected things on my journey to college was being able to continue going on field trips. While the NMUN competition definitely counts as a field trip to some extent, the kind I am talking about is the kind where you are simply going somewhere just to go and witness the place or event. I am not sure why, but I just simply did not expect that field trips were a thing in college, but I was more than delighted to find out this was a thing.

My first ever college field trip also happened to be the first one for the Honors Program since they had to stop doing them because of COVID-19. Of course, I was honored to be a part of this. It was a simple day-trip to the Dallas Museum of Art. It started out with me volunteering to make sandwiches for the trip, so I got to be apart of it from start to end. The trip was fun and an interesting experience as I had never been to art museum before. Since it also counted as a credit, I wrote a reflection paper for this trip which can be found here.

Study Abroad - Berlin 

Study Abroad has been something I wanted to do before my first semester even began. I remember being introduced to the Global Education staff on the first night that I moved into the dorms, and got the ball rolling from the very beginning. With such a head start, I had a lot of freedom to choose how exactly I wanted to go about the process. I ultimately decided on Germany since I had family from there, and my sister even lived there for a short while.

With the place locked in, all I had to do now was wait, and time flew by. I was ecstatic, and even more grateful that the professor gave the option to get a lot of the coursework done prior to leaving, so that's exactly what I did. Our ship out date finally came, and travelling over was a bit tough. We experienced delays and other uncomfortable issues, but we made it in tact. 

While I would absolutely love to detail all the ins and outs of our trip here in this section, I don't have the room for that, and instead wrote a reflection paper which can be found here. Summed up though, it was a crazy ride, one that I no doubt will remember for a long time. 

Honors Officer Council (Treasurer)

At the end of the Spring 2024 term, I ran in a contested election for Treasurer of the Redwine Honors Program Student Council. Embarking on a pioneering policy of "Better Snacking, Less Slacking", promising to bring higher quality snacks to the Honors Lounge. I would ultimately win this election and begin my Fall 2024 term as Treasurer. I had the ultimate goal of continuing the record breaking tradition of raising the most money in a single academic year. The previous Treasurer raised slightly more than $2,300, but just to be safe, I set my sights on $2,500. 

Managing the Fundraising Subcommittee would be a first-time leadership experience for me, but my subcommittee members would help make this a grand experience by being participative, at least at the beginning of the semester. We also carried out my campaign promise of "Better Snacking, Less Slacking" and starting out by setting aside $50 for snacks alone, which lasted us through the rest of the Fall '24 semester, and I believe it was a smashing success.

During Fall, we organized 3 successful campus-based fundraisers, as well as 4 restaurant-partner fundraisers. The money raised from these fundraisers, as well as merch sales, and generous donations brought us to reach our goal of $1,500 for the first semester of my term, which will make our job easier as we entered the Spring '25 semester, and approach the record-breaking goal of $2,500. 

During Spring, the fundraising subcommittee, although smaller, still performed diligently. We organized several restaurants fundraisers and a couple of on-campus ones as well. Our largest income source was the end of the year banquet we hold, as we were able to bring in $990 off of ticket sales and silent auction proceeds. $500 will be donated to First Step Charity out of Wichita Falls once we return for the 25-26 school year. 

Overall, the fundraising subcommittee was indeed able to raise a record-breaking amount of money for the program, which was our goal. Shattering the previous record of roughly $2,300, we brought in exactly $2,933.05 to round out the year. During my two semesters, I also oversaw the snack sub-sub-committee perform extremely well, providing tasty snacks to the lounge every week. I was happy to deliver on this campaign promise.

With the end of the Spring semester also brought a new outlook for next year. Not only was I able to step-down from my treasurer position smoothly and pass the torch to someone I'm very confident in, but I also put in a bid for presidency of the program, and was able to win the election, and with the start of next year, I will be president of the Redwine Honors Program.

This experience taught me several valuable skills such as organized leadership, bookkeeping, and team communication. I thoroughly enjoyed being Treasurer, but I have had my sights set on a more prestigious position within the program since this experience began, and now I am thankful to have obtained that position, but I will not forget my beginnings on the officer team.

First Year Mustangs Peer Educator 2024

Another one of the positions that I laid the foundations for during my Spring '24 semester was an employment experience for MSU. I was employed as a Peer Educator (PE) for the First Year Mustangs Adventure (FYMA) program which is a section of courses offered during Fall semester for MSU to boost student involvement and help transition newly-graduated high school students to college life. As PE's, we had suggestions and lesson plans prepared for us, but beyond that, managing the class was at our sole discretion. The classes only meet once a week every week until Thanksgiving Break, so we only have 12-13 classes throughout an entire semester, which is definitely manageable. 

For Fall '24, I was a PE for two separate classes in the Health Sciences college, which was a nice mix of interests. I regrettably did not take my classes on some grand adventure, but I made engaging slideshows to tell the story behind the lesson plans, as well as included interactive activities that really boosted the overall atmosphere of the classes. I even had a student who had their birthday on the day we had class, and we were able to celebrate with cupcakes. 

Being a PE, I have learned a lot of skills, such as public speaking, team-building, and preparation. I plan to continue doing this for future semesters as well. I enjoyed it thoroughly, and with it being a paid position, it helped keep a little money in my pocket which is never a bad thing. 

MCOSME SAC 24-25

Early on in the Fall '24 semester, I received a notice from the chair of the Computer Science Department asking for interest in being the CS representative for the newly formed McCoy College (MCOSME) Student Advisory Committee (SAC). The following day, I would received a nomination email from the chair who seemed to want me in that position. I gratefully accepted and pursued this new opportunity with interest. There would be a representative from each of the 6 departments /schools within the college, and we would all work directly with the new dean, Dr. Robert Brennan, to examine aspects of the college that could benefit from improving. 

For Fall '24, our first major focus was sending out a survey to see what the student body as a whole believed should be improved. Obviously, with Bolin's renovation currently underway, that was the focus of a lot of negativity, but otherwise, the survey yielded valuable data that the college can present to the administration and hopefully make hasty improvements. 

As we closed out the Fall '24 semester, another focus was improving student-faculty interactions. We accomplished this by hosting a trivia night during Finals Frenzy, and it was a whopping success. Students from all 6 areas of the college showed up, as well as faculty from the majority. We encouraged students to team up with faculty, and it worked amazingly. We were done in just under an hour, but otherwise, I think it was an amazing success to have such a big turnout. 

We continued to operate through the Spring '25 semester, and organized another end-of-the-semester trivia night, which was met with less attendance due to it being organized in under a week. We also held a charity event where people could pay to pie the dean. We weren't having many takers as people likely found the dean intimidating, so another committee member and myself volunteered to be options to pie. Sure enough, we both got pied several times, but it was fun and for a good cause, as we were raising money for River Bend Nature Center.

Another major thing accomplished was the merging of all of the end-of-the-year department celebrations into one large picnic where outdoor games were held, and food was served. As the year wrapped up, we would be losing one of our instrumental members due to graduation, and that would be sad to see, but hopefully the committee will continue to operate with a new member in her place.

Homecoming 2024

A rather big regret I have is my minimal participation in Homecoming 2023, while I attended some events, I was hardly instrumental in our extraordinary win of that Homecoming. This Fall, I aimed to change that and got involved in nearly every aspect that I could. Aside from attending the events put on for the whole campus, I really put in effort to help obtain another victory for the RHP. While I helped with painting the banner, and cheering on the program during Lip Sync, I was likely most integral in the cardboard boat race. I originally did not want to dedicate the vast amounts of time to developing and building a boat that would inevitably become water-logged and trashed for the best case scenario, and worst case scenario, being blamed when it sank. I subsequently avoided helping at first, but as the date approached and the boat looked lacking internally, I decided to step up and build a seating platform for our rowers to help them get leverage when rowing. I also was the main developer of our strategy for our rowing team, detailing how they should go about getting across the lake and back. 

Once the day came down to it, we had a rocky start, not being able to launch the boat because we didn't anticipate having any trouble with that, however, despite our lagged start, the rowers synced up nicely, and we able to overtake the leaders who inevitably sunk. In the end, at least for that heat, our boat was not only the winner, but also the only surviving boat. We congratulated our rowers immensely and I took pride in the fact that I helped construct the internals of the boat, which hopefully served as a benefit to the rowers. 

Another major aspect of this Homecoming was a personal win for me. Last Fall, I was one of the 4 nominees for the Freshman Lord category of homecoming. Unfortunately, I ultimately lost out that year, but my redemption would come this year. I hardly tried to convince and ask people to vote for me, especially compared to last year, but not only was I nominated yet again, I would surprisingly end up winning the title of Junior Prince. 

This implied that I would get to walk the field on Homecoming Night, and do so in a suit and tie. It sounded snazzy, and I definitely was excited. However, this simply did not feel as magical as I imagined winning last year's Homecoming court would've been. Comparing the two, roughly 70% of the court was comprised of honors students last year, while this year, I was the only one. The football team absolutely smoked the opponent on last year's Homecoming game (56-7), while this year, the roles were reversed, with us getting swept (7-44). That of course comes with probably the most crushing blow: Last year, we celebrated the win of Homecoming overall as the Honors Program, but the fact that Honors did not win this year was the cherry on top for the comparisons. The only mild win that my Homecoming experience had over last year's was the weather, it was slightly more tolerable, but it was still windy, and of course, the wind got in my hair and ruined most of the nice pictures I would've had. Ultimately, it's a superlative award that does not have much weight, so I am honestly not too upset, and I am still extremely grateful to have had this experience. 

NCHC '24 Presentation

Since my Spring '24 semester, I had been looking forward to a prestigious opportunity which I embarked upon about halfway through my Fall '24 semester. I applied with my geoscience research that I did in my Fall 2023 semester to be a poster presenter at the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) 2024 Conference. This conference is an annual event where students and faculty from honors programs and colleges from all across the nation come together to network, share ideas, and present research. 

Myself and another student were fortunately selected to present our research at the conference, and I eagerly awaited to attend. It would be taking place in Kansas City, MO for my first year and that would be my first time visiting that city. With a bunch of firsts, a whole host of neat experiences, and some new friends, I would be remiss if I tried to describe everything about it here, so all of the details can be found in the reflection paper that I did over the experience. 

If I were to sum up the entire event in just a short paragraph, I would say that it was definitely a unique experience starting and ending with a long drive. Through the conference, I experienced a fun Halloween party, my first official poster presentation, and a lengthy awards ceremony. On my own, I got to explore the Crown Center, downtown Kansas City, and travel to the KS-MO border on foot. I definitely hope to attend the next two annual conferences, and cannot wait to see what they have in store for me.

NASA SUITS '24-'25

This is likely to turn out as one of the most influential and life-altering experiences to happen to me, and it started out completely unexpectedly. I joined a research group which met Friday's at 3:00pm during Fall '24. This research group is mostly unrelated, but, the following time slot, 4:00pm in the same room was another research group meeting. This was a student-led club that aimed to participate in the annual challenge by NASA Spacesuit User Interface Technologies for Students (SUITS). Having heard about this club beforehand, I decided to stick around and show some interest. I would ultimately end up joining the group, and our main task was writing and submitting a technology proposal to NASA over the mission guidelines. 

The mission guidelines instructed teams to develop User Interfaces (UIs) for both the spacesuit and a pressurized rover. This proposal was comprised of 6 main sections, in which approximately 8 team members at the time would collaborate in fleshing out. I primarily focused on the Concept of Operations section, as well as a little bit of the Hardware/Software, and Project Management sections. I would say that I wrote anywhere from 20%-25% of the entire proposal, in which I am elated to state, especially considering the results. The proposal can be found here, but be warned that it is a lengthy read.

We submitted our proposal while I was in Kansas City presenting at NCHC, October 31st, 2024, and we crossed our fingers, though we would be waiting over a month to hear back. That fateful day came, December 5th, 2024. We eagerly met up to watch the announcement, though we knew we were competing with schools from across the entire nation, so there was a façade of happiness, but deep down, I think all of us were fully expecting to not get selected. If the foreshadowing wasn't obvious, allow me to detail it further: To our complete and utter surprise, we were among the 10 schools to be selected, in the same cohort as Ivy League schools like Rice, Columbia, and more. We shot up and celebrated with vast amounts of joy, but there was also an ironic feeling of dread in the air, now that we had basically signed away our Spring '25 semester to work tirelessly on this project. Regardless, I am elated to an integral member in this group, and I cannot wait to see how it turns out. 

Through months of hard work, new experiences, and tons of learning, we were able to develop software that allowed a user to overview mission status, and control a virtual pressurized rover via a NASA simulation. All of these months of hard work culminated during the middle of May at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Prior to the trip, I simply had no idea how vast and comprehensive our experience would be at the space center, far too much to attempt to cover here, so as with any major experience, I wrote a reflection paper over the trip.

To briefly touch on some of the amazing things we got to experience on that trip, we had a VIP tour of the Space Center, as well as small group tours that aren't available to the public, such as seeing Mission Control (and even getting to stand on the floor while they were operating), witnessing the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, as well as getting to see numerous labs that contribute to human spaceflight research.

The competition itself was comprised of two test nights, on the first we didn't do as well as one might've hoped, but we rebounded for the second night and were able to showcase a working design for an evaluator who gave excellent critiques. Following that, we gave an exit pitch presentation over our design, and got to network with other schools as well as meet an actual astronaut, Deniz Burnham. 

Overall, this experience will likely be unforgettable, and one that I am hoping I can return to next year.

GPHC '25 Presentation

Following my participation in the NCHC conference, I was more than elated to apply for the regional version of the conference: Great Plains Honors Council (GPHC). I again applied with my geoscience research that I did in my Fall 2023 semester. Similar to NCHC, this conference is an annual event where students and faculty from honors programs and colleges from across the southern-central United States come together to network, share ideas, and present research. 

Myself and ten other students were selected to present our research at the conference, and we all eagerly awaited to attend. It would be taking place relatively close, in Denton, TX. With some firsts, a whole host of neat experiences, and some new friends, I would be remiss if I tried to describe everything about it here, so all of the details can be found in the reflection paper that I did over the experience. 

If I were to sum up the entire event in just a short paragraph, I would say that it was relatively similar to NCHC, however, it felt more local and homey. Thankfully, I did not miss any classes, but presented the same day we left along with several others. The following day, I attended all of the oral presentations I could, and went on a fun excursion to the 6th Floor Museum before ending the conference with a wonderful dinner and some live entertainment.

MAA Texas Section '25 Attendance

About halfway through Spring '25, I was given the opportunity to register to attend the Mathematical Association of America's Texas Section meeting. I was excited to embark on my first major-related conference, even if it was centered around my second major. This conference embodies the gathering of Texas's Higher Education Mathematicians with idea-sharing and research presentations. While of course, I wrote a reflection paper over the conference, to sum it up, I would say the conference experience was abnormal compared to the Honors Council conferences, but still allowed me to experience a variety of mathematical fields and new ideas.

National Model UN 2025

As a refresher, NMUN is an annual competition that MSU competes in with a small team of 12-16 people whose goal is to roleplay as the United Nations delegates for a certain country. A more in-depth explanation can be found towards the beginning of this page for the NMUN 2024 section. This year, I was grateful to continue to be on the team, and we would represent the United Arab Emirates. I was specifically on the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons with a like-minded friend as my co-delegate. Throughout the sessions, we felt like we were doing great, we put forth our best effort, and managed many successes. Unfortunately, we would not earn any awards for our work, but the competition was still a blast.

Similar to last year, the competition is not the whole story. Getting to explore NYC will still always bring surprises and fun stories. I will say that this year felt less magical than last, but that is likely due to the novel effect of NYC being gone. Overall, this experience last year was nothing short of life-changing, but this year, it felt neat still, but not quite as impactful. Regardless, I will likely continue to be apart of the team for the coming years. Whether or not is was as magical, I still wrote a reflection paper which can be found here.

As a bonus, my birthday happened to fall on the most infamously challenging day of the conference. One of the delegates in my committee found out about this and asked the Dias to make an announcement. Not only did that announcement happen, but the entire committee sang me happy birthday, which was roughly 300 people, by far the biggest birthday wish I had ever received. 

TTU Observatory Visit

Shortly after returning from NMUN, I drove to a small ranch outside of Crowell, Texas, where the Texas Tech University Observatory is located. As the team participating in NASA SUITS, we were encouraged to visit and stay up through the night to see what the sky has to offer. Arriving just around sunset, I got to witness true rural darkness, minus the fact that this night was a full moon. This full moon would end up hindering the viewing experience, but it was still quite a night.

The volunteer astronomers would guide us through the night, showing us views through their various telescopes, however, the coolest thing we saw that night was witnessed by the naked eye. I was the first to notice a light on the horizon, it almost looked like a drone. Shortly, it was much closer than just on the horizon. Even the astronomers were stumped at what it could have been, but as time passed, there was what looked like a large shockwave coming off of the object, and someone theorized that it could have been a SpaceX rocket. Sure enough, there was a launch earlier in the day that would line up time wise, and with us settling on that as our hypothesis, we enjoyed the fact that we got to see such a spectacle.

I wish I could say otherwise, but unfortunately, the rest of the night pales in comparison. The astronomers told us that the full moon only lets us see about 1% of what we could see through the telescopes on the night of a new moon. While that was unfortunate, we still got to view some of the brightest star clusters and other neat spots in the sky. We were actually able to see the moon quite well, and it was really neat, but the stars and clusters mostly looked like dirty glass, so you really needed to appreciate what you were actually viewing to get the awe effect.

I was one of the remaining 3 that stayed up the latest through the night. The astronomers said they stay up as late as the guests do, even if it's all night. We got to bed around 3:00am, and we were exhausted, so I can only imagine how they feel. The following morning, we packed up and made sure the place was in a better condition than we found it, and then took a lovely picture with the astronomers, and called it a day. We did have plans to come back, but unfortunately, they did not work out. I considered writing a full reflection paper over this, but it is rather hard to do that for an event that lasted less than 8 hours in total, and is instead better told with pictures. To the left are some pictures from the time, including an image of the moon that I personally took through one of the telescopes. 

SHOP-25 Attendance

As a member of the NASA SUITS team for MSU, it was discovered that a conference was being held at NASA towards the end of the semester. This conference was specifically the Spaceflight and Human Optimization Summit (SHOP-25). The college budgeted for 3 attendants to travel down and experience the 3 day summit. While initially it seemed as though I wouldn't be able to go due to other being given priority, since they elected not to go, I was one of the lucky 3 attendants that were able to make the trip down. 

This conference was spectacular, and represented the first conference that I was able to attend that actually relates to my dream job/goal. While we heard many talks, it quickly became apparent that this conference was more of how athletic training research can be applied to space. However, even though the subject matter was less of my specialty, it was still extremely neat, and I had the opportunity to shake the hands of several important people, including a retired astronaut Tom Marshburn, and the psychologist on astronaut selection. The latter was very cool, and he even encouraged me to apply to be an astronaut once able. 

Since it was just a simple conference where the only major thing we did was sit through several sessions of panelists, I decided to abstain from writing a reflection paper of the trip. I will sum it up by saying that I learned some neat things on the first day, but as aforementioned, the latter 2 days pertained mostly to something that I was unable to really get invested in. The concluding talk was over the potential commercial vendor for the next Space Station, which was neat to hear. Of course, we took some time to wander around the visitor center, and experience all of the neat things it had to offer. All in all, this conference was neat, and very valuable in terms of connections. It was a nice preface to what was to come in several weeks when I traveled right back to Johnson Space Center for SUITS.

2025 Awards Banquet

About halfway through the Spring 2025 semester, I was notified of being eligible for the Hardin Scholar Award. I thought this was extremely neat in itself, as the email said only the top 10% of juniors grade-wise are eligible to apply, and it's open to all disciplines. It also widely considered the single-most prestigious award an MSU student can get. This wasn't a typical award either, there was no nomination process, simply an application. Letters of recommendation weren't even required, but obviously strongly recommended. I thought that was atypical for such a prestigious award, but I would still cast my bid.

During the application process, I made my first full curriculum vitae, and I actually made two because I was under the impression that it should be more of a career-style CV, but would later find out an academia-style CV would be preferable. I called upon all of my notable connections for recommendation letters, ranging from the Respitory Health and English departments as I worked with Dr. Randy Case and Dr. Melissa Nivens for my First Year Mustangs Adventure. I asked a couple of professors from the Computer Science department, as well as Dr. Garrison from Honors, Dr. Brennan the dean of MCOSME, and Todd Zatorski who is our NASA SUITS mentor. I think submitted letters of recommendation from various departments and relatively well-known individuals definitely helped my application.

After submission on March 6th, I eagerly awaited the awards banquet to come on April 25th. During this time, I would also submit an application for the Alumni Association's Outstanding Honors Student Award, which is only offered to juniors and seniors in the Redwine Honors Program, which is important for later.

As a quick side note, not during the main banquet where everything else is awarded, but during the MCOSME awards banquet, I was extremely surprised to be offered the most prestigious award from the Computer Science Department, the Louie Huffman Scholarship for $6,000. This award came solely from nominations, and I was told it isn't the type of thing you apply for, so I had no idea about any potential of getting it.

The day of the banquet came, and I had some immense mental turmoil. I was encouraged to wear my orange suit, which I lightly entertained the idea, but once it came down to it, I was unsure if it would be too unprofessional. I asked several of my peers and advisors, they more or less agreed that it wouldn't be too unprofessional, so I struck a balance with myself, and decided to wear the neon orange blazer and tie, while keeping black slacks for some remainder of professionalism. 

With the banquet starting, the first award was from the Alumni Association, presenting their pick of the Outstanding Honors Student. I was almost certain this would go to a graduating senior, so I wasn't even nervous or anything because I simply did not expect to get this. You can probably imagine my surprise when my name was the first called for the night, and I marched up to the stage in all of my orange glory to accept the award. 

The rest of the banquet continued on. As a side note, I was a finalist for the Viola Grady Leadership award as well, but unfortunately did not win that. As the banquet began to close out, there were two large spiels, one from the president, and one from the previous Hardin Scholar, but then the moment came down to it. I was sitting there, blood rushing to my ears, unsure of exactly what they were saying, but then it happened. They announce the name, and I was beyond ecstatic to hear my own. I once again marched up to the stage to accept the award, and I had done it. I had achieved the single-most prestigious award for an MSU student, and I felt happy. As it turns out, the blazer would be much more influential on my thoughts for the coming days. I was happy to have worn it, but I was extra happy for it to not have been in vain, as I would have likely felt silly if it weren't for the win. Overall though, this was definitely a rush to have won an award and be recognized for my effort that I put in.