What is your major and year in school?
My major is civil engineering, and this is my second term here at LB. I took a couple of terms and classes in high school. I think the first one I took was in 2021. It was a Spanish class and they counted it towards college credit.
What made you choose civil engineering?
Well, originally I wanted to be a mechanical engineer, but then I saw that civil engineers make a little bit more than mechanical engineers. And the main thing that I want to be is a geotechnical engineer, which is more investigating stuff. So in order to build something on a plot of land, you would have to see if the soil is capable of withstanding or holding a structure on it. And so I would be the first person there to test to see, okay, yeah, we can put something on there. Yeah, we can do this. Or saying, no, it’s going to rot if you put something on this. It would be my job to say “yay” on certain construction projects. But I haven’t always been good at math; there’ve been certain times in my life where I just feel so stuck. But I’ve always liked math.
Could you tell me a bit about yourself and where you’re from?
Yeah, so I’m from Lebanon in Oregon. I was originally born in Denver, Colorado, but once the 2008 recession hit, my parents unfortunately had to file for bankruptcy and we moved out here to Oregon in Baker City, where the majority of my family is. So my grandparents, my cousins, my aunts and uncles all reside there. But then we saw that Baker City had little to no opportunity academically, same with money and stuff. My parents weren’t making much and they just wanted to make more money. My dad got a job offer here in Tangent, and we just had to pick everything up and move over here. It was a little hard considering that I was going to be entering third grade at the time, but we just adjusted and I’ve been here since.
And then, I really do enjoy a lot of creative stuff, so I’ve always enjoyed drawing and painting. I prefer to use acrylic. I wanted to touch into oil painting, but then I saw how much more intricate oil painting is. I did touch on wash painting as well, which I liked. It was just kind of like a thicker watercolor. I’ve always just stuck to acrylic and basic canvases or actual canvas paper, which I really like using instead of a big canvas. I’ve been getting into jewelry making as of recently, and I just love doing stuff with my hands. And one of the favorite things that I like to do while I’m making jewelry is watching crime drama documentaries.
What brought you to LBCC specifically?
LB has kind of always been the goal since it’s a lot cheaper than straight transferring over to a four year university. And then living in Lebanon, there was a lot of communication between my school and LB. So it was really easy to take classes through Lebanon High School without having to pay, because they had a whole dual partnership program that they did, and I took advantage of that. So I got a lot of my prerequisites out of the way, but it was just always in the picture.
Could you tell me about some of the classes that you’re taking?
Yeah, so right now I’m taking Math 252, as well as chemistry. And my Engineering 102 class is kicking my ass right now. I’m not really big on coding and stuff. Right now we’re focusing on programming a car to go through a track. I’ve never been good at coding, so that one’s really kicking me right now. But I’ll get through it. Math, I mean, it’s basic math for engineers, just learning about how to take the area of certain volumes, which obviously would be really helpful for my degree. I have to take a volume of this and a volume of that. And then for chemistry, just learning about basic compounds. It’s very similar to high school chemistry class, but with a little bit more engineering elements to it. So just learning more about basic compounds and stuff and what mixes with what doesn’t mix with it. I would in the future like to take a welding class, however, just to learn more about that kind of stuff because I’ve heard from many, many welds that engineers don’t really take into account certain metals that don’t mix together. So if they want to mix this metal and this metal together, well, we kind of can’t because these metals don’t play well in the sandbox together. So I would like to try to get into a welding class.
What is your favorite kind of math to do?
I really enjoyed differential calculus. For some reason, all the topics in that class really stuck with me, and I still to this day, remember most of that class, even though it was really short. Integral calculus, however, I do understand it, but it’s just like I’m lacking a lot of confidence to do so. Whereas differential calculus was really fun. But I like math that I can solve for something, not necessarily theoretical math, I want a straight shot answer. So solving basic algebraic equations. I loved algebra. Same with geometry, I loved geometry because it was a solid answer and I could get what I needed from that.
Are there any professors or people in your life who you look up to as a role model?
Yeah, this is going to sound really cheesy, but my mom, she’s had a really crazy life. She unfortunately had to move out of the house at a very young age and start earning money for the family. Her father unfortunately passed away, so she’s always been a very hardworking woman, always persevered, never let anything get her down type of person. So she would definitely be the number one person that I think of. Another person would probably be my ex manager at Hobby Lobby. I thought she hated me initially, but I realized she was a very stern and strong woman, and I wasn’t really accustomed to it at the time because I never got introduced to a woman like that. And it was nice. I loved it because she taught me that you can speak your mind and you can speak your truth. Unfortunately in the engineering program, in every single one of my classes, whether it’s math or chemistry, I’m one of five or six women. It’s a very male dominated atmosphere. So my ex-manager, she really taught me to be stern and to be strong and not be afraid of who hears it or not.
And then a professor here, I would have to say Michael [Lopez], he’s always been really chill. He’s always been a really cool guy, and always let me know about any opportunities or anything that I can take advantage of. He was just a really informative instructor. On top of that, you can tell that he really does care about his students because he wants his students to understand everything. One thing that I have noticed with professors present and past is that even though you’re in a higher level class, they tend to skip over the basic things that a student should know how to do. And that’s where a lot of students get lost. Michael, he went through every single step, even if it was repetitive, even if it was a little boring, he went through every single step to ensure that each one of his students would learn everything correctly.
What has your experience been like in such a male-dominated field?
So as of recently, predominantly my chemistry class, most of the guys have either a higher level understanding of chemistry, or they think they have a higher understanding of chemistry than what they’re in, which doesn’t build a great atmosphere for people trying to learn. You feel overshadowed. At least I felt overshadowed or I just feel like, oh, if I ask a question, I might look dumb. So just feeling really overshadowed by how many more guys there are in the class. Luckily though, in my math class, and it’s about the same ratio, I created good acquaintances and friendships with the girls in that class, and we get along really well, and we work together to build each other up. I think having a strong unity within the girls in the class helps so much, so you don’t feel alone, so you don’t feel like you’re pushed out of the way. There can be times where you might feel overshadowed by a guy and having a girl by your side or having her say, “You’ve got this, you know what you’re doing,” helps a lot. And that’s how I felt with math 252.
What do you do for work?
I’m a math tutor through LBCC’s tutoring program. I really do enjoy tutoring. I enjoy helping people. I always have. If somebody has a problem, I enjoy being able to be the first one that they can go to for help or that they can go to ask any questions that they need that their professors might not be able to. So right now I’m tutoring math 251 and below. Hopefully next year I’ll be able to tutor math 252 and below. But as well as math, I’m also tutoring Spanish since I can do it bilingually. I’m also tutoring [math] bilingually as well. But I really do enjoy being able to help somebody because I’ve gone through stress as well with math. I haven’t always been good at math. There’s been several times where I just felt so lost in math. I think the first time that I ever felt lost was probably my very first algebra class in about middle school-ish. I was just really struggling to grasp the concepts. It wasn’t until I actually reached out to my own teacher at the time and said, “Hey, can I get some help?” and that really helped me. So if I can give that to somebody that is struggling with math that they might feel a little bit more comfortable with math, not necessarily best buddies with math, but just a little bit more at ease with it, I’m very happy that I’m able to do that for somebody.
How would you say being bilingual benefits you in math tutoring?
It’s helped me a lot, because unfortunately in the Latino community, there’s a lot of cultural stigma about asking for help. In the Latino community, especially the Mexican community, we are very independent and we very much want to solve things ourselves. It can be seen as a sign of weakness to ask for help. So helping other Latinos who have that stigma or who have that mentality. Because my mom, again, she’s had to be on her own her entire life basically. So asking for help for her, it’s hard to do. And I know a lot of Latinos can relate to that because they’re always told, or at least I’ve always been told, you, figure it out, figure it out, figure it out. Well, sometimes you need an extra person there to help you figure it out.
Unfortunately, in a lot of the Latino community, I’ve seen people whenever it gets too hard just kind of push it to the side and try to focus on something that’s easier, that’s more comfortable, instead of going out their comfort zone, because they might not have a good support system, or they just might not have an outlet to ask for help. So I think being that person, oh, she’s also Latino, she’s asking for help, she’s the person that I can go to. And then also being able to speak in Spanish with another person creates more comfort because it’s just something that reminds me of my house. I speak Spanish to my mother 24/7. With my father, he’s American, I speak English to him. So having that balance as well just creates a sense of comfort, being able to speak Spanish.
What would you say are some of the most common challenges that students tend to have in math, and how do you help them overcome that?
I think with math, a lot of students tend to get frustrated easily, and once they get frustrated, they tend to get overwhelmed and they just stop doing it early, because I’ve also been that type of person. So I really can relate to that. I think taking a step back in analyzing things helps, but also understanding that if you feel frustrated on the topic, that’s an amazing sign and it means that you’re learning something that you haven’t learned before that you can get proficient at, that you can get really good at.
So I think feeling frustrated is a really big turnoff for certain students because they’re not understanding something, but it’s actually one of the best things you can feel because it means that your brain is actually working harder to understand something. But I think the main thing, at least for me that’s helped me overcome that is not being afraid to go in depth on each topic. So as I said before, going through each problem step-by-step by step really helps. It’s helped me a lot because there are going to be people in there that seem smarter or advanced than you, but in reality they might be in the same spot as you. So just cutting all those distractions and just focusing on you helps as well.
For me, when I’ve struggled with math, the reason why I struggled was because I would peer over at somebody else’s math, and I would see that they did it a completely different way. And it made me overwhelmed and made me think that I wasn’t as good at math as them, but it’s just that they do math differently than I do. I need to find my own pace. I need to find a way that math works for me, instead of me working for math. So I think just cutting distractions out and focusing on yourself. I think even color coding, I’ve done color coding for my math notes and it’s helped me a lot. I stopped being embarrassed for not being able to understand math that somebody else has. And I think a lot of people could benefit from that too.
What has been the most rewarding part of the civil engineering program?
I think the most rewarding thing is finally learning those things. Finally understanding, finally all your work pays off. Although you might not get the best grade on a test, your personal understanding of a subject is so much more than that. In the beginning in chemistry, there were so many things that I just didn’t understand. And same with math. I had a vague understanding of it, but I didn’t feel comfortable with it. Whereas now I feel more comfortable with stuff from week one that I did on week one. I feel like those things are more tangible to me, whereas in the beginning, they felt kind of far away. So just being able to say, yeah, I know what I’m talking about now, or I know what to do when this problem occurs, has been the most rewarding.
What has been the most challenging part of the program?
The most challenging part for me has probably been the workload taking calculus and chemistry. I think that has been the most strenuous, for me at least. Just trying to get caught up on assignments, trying to get everything in my brain and comprehending every single subject matter has been the main challenge for me, because there are professors that teach things differently than how I learn. So trying to take the professor’s words and putting it into something that I know has been a little bit challenging. I have to go out of my comfort zone in order to learn this subject, which I haven’t really had to do beforehand. I’ve always just kind of gotten things and then moved on to the next one. But now I have to do more independent study time in these classes than I’ve had before.
What are your career plans for after you graduate from LBCC?
So after I graduate, hopefully I can get into a geotechnical engineering firm. There’s one in Corvallis that I’ve been eyeing. But just going straight into the engineering field. Towards the end of my college experience, I hope to obtain some sort of internship at some sort of firm. If unfortunately geotechnical engineering doesn’t work out, I just hope that my civil engineering degree will take me places that I never thought. So just hopefully finding something out there that works for me. Right now, my options are very open. I’m taking classes that are very general instead of specific. So I mean, hopefully I get a good job at a geotechnical engineering firm. If it’s here in Corvallis or if it’s somewhere across the country, even across the world, I would be totally open. But just trying to stick with that and trying to find an engineering field that is more investigative and more hands-on than technology stuff. I don’t like AutoCAD, which is a software that you use to design stuff. So finding something or a job that accommodates those things.
Lastly, what is one piece of advice that you would give to someone who’s considering going into civil engineering?
I would say be prepared. Be prepared to feel stressed, be prepared to feel overwhelmed, and be prepared to not understand. And although it sounds scary, these are very good things to do, and it means you’re pushing yourself to something better. Civil engineering is, I wouldn’t say it’s an easy degree to obtain, but it’s a very rewarding one once you get towards the end. I’ve heard many stories of people starting from a little bubble to being either the manager of the engineering firm or being the head person on a project. Coming from something small and then going to something big is very rewarding. And you better like math if you want to be an engineer. But if you’re prepared to feel those things and to feel challenged, I think engineering would be a very good path for you.
This story originally appeared in the March 2025 edition of The Commuter.
