#2A Three Significant People

Dr. Peixoto is a professor of mine who I just had for a Bioengineering class last Fall. Actually, I met her once about two years ago, when I came to speak to her to express interest in the Bioengineering concentration within the Electrical Engineering degree. Actually, at that time, she insisted I call her by first name, Nathalia, something that took some time for me to get used to. I remember even then that she distinguished herself from the typical EE faculty member; she was friendly, spoke easily, was goofy, and smiled a lot. She's originally from brazil, and Portuguese is her first language, but she speaks 4 other languages. She's brilliant. In class, she not only encouraged us to think like engineers but also as humanitarians, entrepreneurs, and businessmen.

Mr. Remold was my pre-calculus teacher in junior year of high school. He was this huge guy, at probably 6' 5", with a personality like a mixture of Matthew McConaughey's character Wooderson in Dazed and Confused and Santa Claus. He was jovial like Santa but really funny and slick like Wooderson. Up until that year of high school, I hadn't really developed a 'knack' for any particular subject, and had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do later in life (i.e. college, career). Mr. rembold's teaching style and personality, somehow and in some way, flicked a switch in my brain about Math. Everything just clicked after that. It was the weirdest and most exciting thing, to have all those years in the past that I struggled in math, all the subject matter, suddenly became crystal clear to me. I think he had a huge impact in my decision to choose engineering as a career.

After I developed a knack for calculus/math/solving problems, my Dad was the one that turned me on to the idea of becoming an engineer. He has been a systems engineer at Mitre for over 25 years. I can't speak about the specific environment in which I remember him, because he's my Dad! He's always been there for me, wearing different hats along the way. He was my baseball coach, my basketball coach, and nowadays my career coach. He planted the idea in my head that I was lucky enough to have the mind to solve engineering problems and that I could make a career out of it.