Rachana M.

I'm a first-generation immigrant who stepped into a highly competitive college environment where I felt like everybody already understood what they wanted. There were a lot of unspoken rules about how to network, how to speak confidently, and how to navigate opportunities. I experienced this constant questioning and invisible pressure to catch up quickly, to prove where I belong. Engineering became my path because it taught me that there's an iterative process to the madness. The incentive, especially being a first-gen immigrant, was to maximize every single opportunity, representing the sacrifices my family made. All their hopes and beliefs kind of hinge on my journey, and while that weight is pressurizing, it's also motivating. I learned to bridge worlds and create a sense of identity regardless of internal conflict, navigating different definitions of success and ambition. What engineering taught me is being persistent with outcomes, and staying in the room long enough means you're absorbing a lot more. My journey from being in the lowest tier of my class freshman year to becoming a Grace Hopper Scholar, awarded to only 10 to 15 people in a batch of candidates, speaks volumes about my idea of persistence and creating a roadmap to succeed on unfamiliar paths that my family might not have taken or known about.