Everyone has goals that they want to achieve, like becoming a police officer or getting into an amazing law firm and solidifying yourself as a great lawyer. But how do you get there? Rishvanjas Shinoj a junior at Carnegie has similar aspirations. He has dreams of becoming a great aerospace engineer. Let’s take a look at some of his extracurricular activities and how they are pushing him towards his goals.
“Have you seen space, space is so cool, you know, like exploring space building rockets and all that. Super interesting,” said Rishvanjas,
Rishvanjas always found space super interesting, he loves to talk about space and often yaps about galaxies and stars and stuff of that sort. He enjoys the idea of space so much that his name in one of his favorite games, Valorant, is “Milkdromeda” which would be the name of the combination of the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxy. It’s a pretty creative name.
Rishvanjas on why he likes robotics said “I really enjoy building stuff. And that is my purpose. You know, like helping build the robot after they design it. You see, like, they should build it, see if there are any problems, and then figure it out. You know”
Rish (rishvanjas’s preferred name) takes part in the robotics team. Rish is someone who enjoys messing around with objects and building things. He is a very hands-on kind of guy, so robotics was a great outlet for both his imagination and his need to tinker. Many aspects of robotics will be helpful in his path towards aerospace engineering but the main one he pointed out was the experience of working with a team on a project. Rish will use this skill especially when working on aircraft or spaceships with his group of engineers. This skill will be fundamental when designing and constructing the spaceships.
“ My favorite part is building the robot, I like to do things with my hands so it’s very stimulating when I work with robots,” said Rish.
In robotics Rish had to work with a team to construct his bot before the competition. Rish communicates and displays his opinions and ideas well as a pretty social person. This allowed Rish to point out that he noticed some mistakes in the building process. These mistakes could have caused a detrimental error in their upcoming competition. This error involved the chassis which holds the bot together. Using this experience from robotics and working in a team Rish will now learn from his mistakes giving him more experience and making him more prepared for his future career in aerospace engineering. He will also carry on his social attitude which will make communication easier.
Another aspect of robotics that may come to help Rish while he is chasing his dreams will be his experience with building bots. Rish indicated that he isn’t very interested in the coding aspect of robotics so the fact that he is a part of the build team in robotics will be very helpful since he will most likely be a part of the build or design team of aerospace engineering.
Another extracurricular activity that Rish believes will be beneficial in the future is his internship with Rice University. His internship involves a Tinkercad-like software where he designs things like rockets. This experience with designing rockets will be beneficial especially if he takes a role in the design team. The errors in the building process all start from the design so his experience with the building process will also benefit him if he takes a role in the design team.
A universal experience that Rish gains from all of his extracurriculars is learning from his mistakes. Nobody is perfect so everyone makes mistakes at some point. Whether he made a mistake in robotics or his internship he will know what to look out for when he is designing or building when he is an aerospace engineer. This was especially evident in his results during the robotics competition. After noticing a couple of screw-ups in the building process and fixing them they were able to place second which is a great accomplishment. His results are already showing.
When asked if Rish would take a break after college he responded “I mean, what else are you gonna do be lazy and be broke or something? “
Dreams don’t come true overnight. You have to prepare beforehand and be persistent. Rishvanjas skips coming to Barnabys or going to the mall to study for the SAT or do work for his internship or his tutoring volunteer work. Last but not least he skips Barnabys to go to robotics. All of this preparation will not be in vain and Rish will be successful in his aspirations. The only thing holding him back now is his laziness and his work ethic which I’m sure he will keep in check considering how much he likes space and robotics. Even his name in Valorant is robotics-related.
