"Iowa State is unlike any place, and my journey here from so far away gave me lifelong memories......."
What is something that you experienced at ISU that you never expected to happen?
Getting an internship as a freshman International Student. I heard from most of my friends that were international students in engineering that it was very tough to achieve the feat. However due to my background in programming, I was hired by Whirlpool for a seven month co-op. This complemented what I learnt during my first couple of semesters at Iowa State and built a platform for what I went on to do later.
Talk about some interesting people/experiences that you will never forget?
Weird and wonderful things happen at Iowa State all the time and everybody you meet has a story to tell. One of my best friends here is from Greece and he played soccer professionally back home. Now he wants to make it big in the world of technology, a dream that I too share.
Talk about one experience that stood out maybe challenging......?
Getting conjunctivitis during the summer of my sophomore year here, easily by a huge margin. Every time I opened up my eyes, I was going through hell and even with several rounds of medication it didn’t go away. I was taking a relative tough summer course which was taught at a rapid pace. To make matters worse, I signed up for a week-long workshop on LabVIEW that culminated in an exam and I was required to pay attention to slides projected on a wall. I had to drop out. That was a summer I wouldn’t want to revisit.
What kept you going through the tough times and kept you motivated?
I’ve always wanted to make the most of opportunities I’ve gotten since I was younger. Iowa State is a great place as there are so many opportunities for career and personal development. I always perceived tough times as a test of my ability to persevere and make the most of what’s there to achieve. On top of this, ISU has provided me with a very supportive and calming atmosphere as well as a strong network of friends. All these factors have helped me to maintain my motivation through tough times.
What is something that you think you could have only have done at Iowa State?
Focusing on studies while having an active social life. Ames is a small college town and the number of big city attractions is few or almost nonexistent. So it’s not all that tough to focus on what’s important and to get things done. However, Ames and Iowa State provides you ample opportunity to blend in and make a wide network of friends to socialize with. So you could have a good social life while getting stuff done. I would have been way too distracted in a big city.
"I will miss this place..........."
Would u do anything different in college? What if you could go back to your freshman year?
Not really. Maybe except for the fact that did not make proper use of the gym in the first couple of semesters. Recreational facilities here are great and staying in shape is pretty easy if you build a habit of working out. Apart from that, I really wouldn’t want to change a thing.
How was it like to study all the way across the world.......................?
This wasn’t my first time studying abroad so to speak. My family moved from Sri Lanka to Australia when I was younger and moved back after a while. So I’ve had it worse than this, in the sense that I spoke little to no English when we moved to Australia. With the ‘easy to adapt to’ culture in a college town like Ames, there was not much in the way of a culture shock or language barrier.
What is a memorable ISU story>
The curriculum and the subject stream I chose to study in Sri Lanka was geared towards gaining admission to medical school as opposed to engineering. So I took subjects such as Human Biology and Biology in studying for the British GCE Ordinary level examination and Advanced level Biology for the National GCE Advanced level examination in high school. The highest Math I had taken was for the British Ordinary level examination which included a brief one lesson introduction to pre-college calculus. Following graduation from high school, I realized what I really wanted to do and decided to pursue a degree in Engineering at Iowa State. Despite my limited exposure to higher level math in high school, I have done well in all the math courses that were required and even took math courses as electives!
Whats your plan after graduation, any big interesting things down the line?
I have accepted an offer from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania to pursue a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering. I will start research on robotic and/or programmable assembly of materials, commonly known as 3D printing in the Fall of 2016.
