1. Why did you choose Santa Clara University's School of Engineering?
Nate is originally from San Jose, and was not entirely sure what to look for when it came to the college search. Though he did not necessarily have a dream school when it came to colleges and initially thought he wanted to be farther away from home, he had heard of Santa Clara’s reputation as a university in Silicon Valley and was immediately attracted to it. According to Nate, the selling points far outnumbered many other institutions: small class size, location, ability to form meaningful relationships with professors and faculty members. Nate describes himself as the type of student who has not always excelled at in-class learning. From the get-go, Nate knew that Santa Clara could provide him with the resources to receive an excellent education despite this. Though Nate did not know exactly what he wanted to do when he decided to attend Santa Clara University, be it psychology, biology or a related field, he found himself intrigued by Bioengineering and ultimately chose to give it a shot. After his first year at Santa Clara, Nate transferred into Bioengineering from Undeclared.
2. What has your journey been like since leaving SCU?
After graduating from Santa Clara, Nate joined Epic Careers, a software company, in Madison, Wisconsin. As early as his junior year at Santa Clara, Nate began to come to terms with the fact that he could not see himself working in a laboratory or similar, research-related setting for the rest of his life. After many difficult discussions with faculty and staff in the Bioengineering department, he joined a company where he knew he would be surrounded by excellent software developers and engineers. At Epic, Nate worked on a team that addressed Epic’s software-related bugs, eventually deciding that it was not the right fit for him. After a year at Epic, Nate returned to San Jose and started in a new career path with Planisware as an Associate Consultant. He now works on an implementation team, working directly with businesses to understand their organizations and then apply the Planisware software to best suit their needs. In this new role, Nate works to configure Planisware’s products to help businesses better organize their work and improve their working efficiency.
3. How has SCU helped you achieve your goals since graduating?
Reflecting on his experience at Santa Clara in the School of Engineering, Nate recalls spending quite a bit of time speaking with the school’s faculty members about his career path, decisions that would ultimately shape his long-term goals. He remembers numerous occasions where individual professors helped him through difficult periods in his college experience and their willingness to have difficult conversations about his future. Even when Nate returned to San Jose from Madison, some of the first people he reached out to were professors at Santa Clara, all of whom offered suggestions on jobs and networking opportunities. The environment fostered at Santa Clara allowed him to build important and meaningful connections with professors and faculty, something Nate will remember forever.