乔纳森·查韦斯·德·罗萨斯

作者:吉利安·贝克|加州州立大学洛杉矶新闻社

乔纳森·查韦斯·德·罗萨斯 fondly remembers spending weekends as a child watching his father work in the construction business.

Father and son would ride together in the family’s brown van to remodeling jobs at high-end homes nestled in the Orange County hillsides.

作为今天的“助理”, a 6-year-old Jonathon would watch mesmerized as his father meticulously stacked wood beams and assembled the pieces to create new rooms from the ground up. 他想知道材料是如何以及为什么以某种方式放置的, and how his father knew how to give the structures support and shape.

许多年以后, 在足彩外围网站的土木工程课程, Chavez De Rosas discovered answers to those questions and realized why he was drawn to his chosen field.

“那些日子和建筑的奇迹一直留在我的脑海里, 即使多年以后,查韦斯·德·罗萨斯在一篇个人历史文章中写道.

The 22-year-old Orange resident will receive a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering in May from the College of Engineering, 计算机科学, 及科技(ECST). In the fall, he’ll begin a structural engineering master’s degree program at UC San Diego.

查韦斯·德·罗萨斯是家里第一个获得大学学位的人. From a young age, he says, he strove to succeed in school to make his parents proud. His mom cleaned houses and his dad worked for a construction firm and on independent remodeling projects to support their six children.

起初, Chavez De Rosas thought he merely stumbled into his major due to an aptitude for math and science and a desire for a productive and lucrative career. But a writing-intensive course for civil engineering majors helped him trace his interest in buildings and structures to those days spent watching his father work.

教师 at 加州大学洛杉矶分校 helped engineering come alive for Chavez De Rosas. Adjunct Professor Roy Poomiwatracanont used real project examples from his work as a structural engineer in his class on statics, 对物体或物质之间的力进行量化的研究.

“He just had a way of making it fun and intriguing,” Chavez De Rosas says.

从那时起，查韦斯·德·罗萨斯对工程的热情开始绽放. He found himself spotting examples of statics and calculating forces while walking around campus. He sought out opportunities to stretch his skills inside the classroom and out.

Chavez De Rosas gained experience as a student volunteer for the Caltrans District 7 Construction Division in Santa Fe Springs, where he helped track the progress of the I-5 expansion project and construction on Firestone Boulevard.

2019年夏天, Chavez De Rosas participated in the National Science Foundation’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates program at UC San Diego, where he worked on research to train an artificial neural network to accurately model heart valve tissue.

在足彩外围网站的最后一年, Chavez De Rosas assisted Professor Rupa Purasinghe on analyzing building fire simulations to study how fast people would feel smoke and heat effects based on structure and materials.

无论是什么研究领域或项目领域, 查韦斯·德·罗萨斯对挑战的渴望驱使着他. “I think in order to be successful in engineering you have to like to tackle a project and a problem and try to solve it,他说.

His latest challenge has been through the College of ECST’s Capstone Senior Design Program, which aims to provide students with opportunities to apply their theoretical knowledge to real industry problems. He and fellow students worked to solve a severe coastal erosion issue on Pacific Coast Highway in Ventura County.

查韦斯·德·罗萨斯是他的团队的结构负责人, which proposed a solution that protects the roadway from erosion using secant pile walls. He and his teammates presented their plan to their clients, representatives from Caltrans, via Zoom.

Chavez De Rosas served as president of 加州大学洛杉矶分校’s chapter of Chi Epsilon, 全国土木工程荣誉学会. 在这个角色中, he helped plan and host the society’s 32nd Pacific District Conference in fall 2019, which brought 14 chapters from across the region to 加州大学洛杉矶分校 for networking and professional development.

He is a member of the engineering honor society Tau Beta Pi and the American Society of Civil Engineers. He also served as captain for 加州大学洛杉矶分校’s team for the American Institute of Steel Construction’s Student Steel Bridge Competition.

Through his involvement in these organizations, Chavez De Rosas created a community at 加州大学洛杉矶分校. “It turned from a place I would drive every day for classes, to somewhere I wanted to be,他说.

院长名单学生, Chavez De Rosas received a scholarship in 2018-19 from Simpson Strong-Tie, 一家结构产品制造公司. He also won second place in the Spring 2016 Public Speaking Showcase hosted by the Department of Communication Studies.

同时兼顾学业和课外责任, Chavez De Rosas still made time to de-stress with his other passion—music. 高中时，他和哥哥在一个乐队里打鼓. 现在, 他在自己的笔记本电脑上创作和录制自己的歌曲, 受到独立摇滚乐队音乐风格的启发.

在加州大学圣地亚哥分校获得硕士学位后, Chavez De Rosas hopes to pursue a career in the structural engineering industry. He wants to focus on the design and analysis of different kinds of buildings and structures. “我不想被归类，”他说.

Chavez De Rosas thinks back to those afternoons spent at remodeling job sites gazing up at the expensive homes his father helped create.

一个阳光明媚的下午, 他回忆说, his father looked down and asked him if he might end up living in one of those houses one day. “我记得我当时想，‘哦，我希望. 希望——我们会看到的，’”查韦斯·德·罗萨斯说.

现在, 当查韦斯·德·罗萨斯想到他的未来时, 这不是他梦想中的大房子, 而是一份令人满意的工程事业和舒适的生活. 他希望有一天能设计并建造自己的录音室, 他可以逃到哪里继续创作音乐.

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