My Introduction

Vamos a Valencia!!!

I just got awarded an opportunity to participate in research abroad in Valencia, Spain! I am incredibly excited about the opportunites that this research will give me. During my time here, I will be helping my mentor design a concrete mix that has been requested by an outside company. This concrete will be used to store solar energy and so it's requirements are incredibly uncommon. I'll let you know a little secret. It is going to resist temperatures greater than 600 degrees... CELSIUS! The research opportunity will amount to a total of 5 weeks.

I know I'm going to be learning a lot of technical things about concrete, but I am also looking forward to my experience in a new country making friends with locals and becoming better friends with las chicas and los chicos of Texas.

This song "Bailando" is the theme song of my trip. I'm lucky it plays everywhere I go..maybe I wont be so happy about this later...!

First off, I must mention that I'm studying civil engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington. I've always felt confident in math and science classes and it made the most sense to me to put my technical talents to use. I have always had an interest in games like Sims, Roller Coaster Tycoon, and the like where you get to design and plan cities, theme parks, and houses. Naturally, an engineering degree seems like a good idea because it caters to my talents. However, I chose civil because of the direct impact it has on people. The simple things such as irrigation, roads, fire hydrants, and street lights are all because of civil engineers. Cities are protected from floods, earthquakes, snow loads, etc, due to the help of civil engineers. Civil engineering has many subsections within it, including environmental engineering which is where my <3 lies.

But what do I want to accomplish?

My ultimate goal in my career is to obtain the skills to design a sustainable community and offer a program that will allow a group of people to sign up to live in it. In the United States, we have programs that support low-income families. However, this money forces people to become dependent on solely that and it becomes difficult to move up in society. People who grow up in the hood, tend to stay there because parents can't afford private education or even decent education. Parents work days and nights and children don't get the nurturing that they need. Often, federal and state education standards prevent teachers from being able to educate their students the way that they would work better.

In the United States, monocultures have manifested and crops are grown with synthetic fertilizers that are proven to cause health problems. People who have little money and little time often buy unhealthy, processed foods which leads to health issues that no one can afford. It's a sad life and I think that it is possible to offer something different. In a sustainable community, we can design neighborhoods and communities that work together to make things cheaper for everyone. Ideas include permaculture farming and assigning crafts that each house can create and trade. Other ideas include the sustainable building design such as eliminating the use of artificial lighting, air conditioning, and destructive sources of energy. We can design plants and animals to coexist so that they are benefiting each other. This idea isn't new, it is called permaculture and it's a topic that if you are not familiar with, you definitely should look into it. I would recommend and book by Michael Pollan called "The Omnivore's Dillema".

I want to have the community be as independent as possible from the city in the case that local taxes cannot fix problems in the city such as contaminated water, energy outages, etc. I want this community to be able to get their food from their gardens which will improve their health, I want this community to be able to harness its own electricity and use less of it through creative design, which should cut down costs. The technology exists to build this community, it just requires intelligent and creative minds to design it in a cost-effective way.

"Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime." - unknown
This is the quote that fuels my fire.

So there you have it! I want to use the sustainable land development skills that I will acquire throughout my career to create a non-profit program that can design sustainable living communities that offer an alternative way of dealing with poverty, for those who wish to switch lifestyles.

Hopefully my time at the AIDICO research facility will help me gain the technical experience that will benefit my career. I am also looking forward to making friends with my colleagues and the locals.