Walking into the engineering room at Ayala, students are immediately met with walls, counters, and desks filled to the brim with a wide range of unique projects. These models, posters, and images, created by students past and present, are all beautiful, wonderful testaments to the passion and creativity of all the individuals who have worked within those walls. A plaque at the center of it all, at the top of the front wall, showcases the inscription: “Every second counts.”
On Thursday, August 21, Ayala’s engineering program welcomed back two of its previous students, Lance Lucaszewicz and Ting Xiao, to this very room. Michael Collins, the engineering and architectural design instructor and ACE Mentor school champion for the ACE Inland Empire affiliate, planned the event. These alumni came back to campus with the intention to share their experiences in the college world while pursuing their majors of choice, civil engineering and architecture. Throughout their presentations, they shared with an enraptured audience how they have grown and what they have learned from this strenuous field of work.
“They are here to share with you today and give you some insight into what they are doing,” Collins said. “As a part of our whole career readiness program, and getting you to understand different options that may be available based on the interest level you may have.”
Lance Lucaszewicz started off by testifying that mistakes are undoubtedly not only the center of life, but the center of engineering. At California State Polytechnic University, Pomona studying civil engineering, which is a branch of engineering focusing on manmade and natural environments, Lucaszewicz became intimately familiar with blunders and miscalculations. Whether it was a model bridge that came out crooked or a design that just missed the mark, there will be countless obstacles to overcome and innumerable late nights spent pouring over problems, which can only be met with unrelenting optimism.
One of these occurrences came in the form of a project to design a bridge which Lucaszewicz, along with his group in Steel Bridge Run, poured themselves over. To the dismay of Lucaszewicz, the bridge came out crooked, and it’s important to note, bridges should not do that. All Lucaszewicz and his team could do was laugh it off and start over.
“There is going to be a process. There are going to be mistakes. There are going to be places where you say ‘damn I messed up.’ But it is all about how you work through it,” Lucaswicz said.
Lucaszewicz also explained the relationships he has built in his studies, and the importance of connections. Building a strong community around oneself, no matter how big or small the college, makes a real difference.
“When you meet more people that just means there are more perspectives,” Lucaszewicz said. “More perspectives means more ideas are flowing.”
Working through problems with others instead of just individually going at it eliminates any tunnel vision someone may get when facing an issue. Multiple points of views can go a long way to prevent being unable to see the flaws in a line of reasoning.
“I have grown a lot from [my peers and competition team],” Lucaszewicz said. “They have grown a little bit because of me.”
The speakers also addressed a common misconception about pursuing a STEM education and career. Ting Xiao, an architecture major at Pratt University in New York City, emphasized that his major is not just purely mathematical, but also highly creative. The beautiful thing about architecture is that you are supposed to express your creativity to the fullest extent.
Xiao dedicates a great deal of his time simply experimenting with design programs online, creating models beyond his wildest imaginations, such as a building shaped like a snake or a bridge of mirrors. He emphasizes that he leaves the engineers to decide if his design is plausible, and he jokes the only matter that concerns him is if it looks cool.
“Go even beyond what you think,” Xiao said. “This is my passion. I want to push this out to the world. This is the type of creativity that I have. This is mine.”
Xiao also came with a multitude of stories featuring strict professors, annoying classmates, and additional woes of college. He stressed how students will absolutely have to face internal conflicts as well as seemingly never-ending roadblocks that would make even the hardest of workers reconsider why they choose to put themselves through it.
However, Xiao testifies that the difficult and sometimes unrewarding journey always ends up being worth it when he gets to the end. Whether it is a completed project or a finished design, Xiao’s ideas are always proof that he is doing his best to chase his dreams.
“Architecture is very hard. You are going to burn out very quickly if you do not find what you are looking for,” Xiao said. “Go all out.”
Almost closing out their chapter of life in college, these alumni faced their old classroom filled with eager students, much like themselves years ago, and chose to give back to the next generation of hopeful, imaginative engineers with tales of hard-learned lessons and witty jokes. More than anything, these two men hoped that they could convince the starry-eyed audience to continue to change the world by pursuing their dreams, just as they had. As the presentation ended they gave one last phase of reassurance, and a final word of advice.
“There is less pressure than you think,” Lucaszewicz said.
