Ramon Virella RD
Ramon Virella RD
Ramon Virella RD
Ramon Virella
J. Snyder
20 March 2023
Intro-
When most people look back at their life they tend to focus on the good and bad days, the
outliers. It’s hard to remember every regular old Tuesday, but it’s easy to remember the
birthdays, and celebrations. Now that it’s all over I find myself wishing for more of the
everyday, more waking up at six every morning. The other days are what make up life, and I
wish I could remember them better. When you're a child, you spend every day wishing to grow
up, to be an adult. Now that I’m here I want nothing more than to just go back to playing board
games with Mom and Dad, cooking in Grandma’s kitchen, playing Monopoly with the boys at 3
o'clock in the morning. I’m scared to move forward, and I will always miss the regular old
Bio
My name is Ramon Virella, and I was born April 27, 2005. My parents are Ramon and
Candice Virella, and I have two younger sisters Leiya and Raeya. I was born in Grand Rapids,
and have lived here all of my life. For the first half of my life, my family was homeless, but
thankfully now we have a stable home, and life is back to normal. I have been going to Godfrey
Lee Public Schools since the second grade, it was here I met my best friends: Aiden (Doody),
Jonathan (Mijo), Mario (Moyo). This is my last year of high school and hopefully next year I
will be starting college. I love movies, comics, anime, and almost any other nerdy subject. I grew
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up watching Star Wars, Marvel, and almost any other science fiction shows. Because of this, I
have always loved props, and toys that replicate the items shown on screen. I have also been
cooking since I was eleven years old; most adults in my family can cook and they made me want
to start cooking. As a child, the reason I made dinner was because my parents had to work late,
to me, keeping the house clean was a way to help support them. I saw how much they worked
and I wanted to be able to help. I still cook to this day, now it’s more of a fun way to experiment,
I started my senior year of high school this year and I wanted to make this year the best
year possible. I joined the Anime Club, National Honor Society, and created the yearbook club
with my friend, Aiden. The Anime Club has been an amazing way to spend time after school
with my friends; we even started playing Dungeons and Dragons, which has been an absolute
blast. Because of the Honor Society, I have helped out at multiple food trucks, took tickets for a
football game, and even went Christmas shopping for the National Honor Society. All of them
were volunteer opportunities that I wouldn’t have normally done, but they were all a lot of fun.
The yearbook club was definitely nothing like any of the other clubs. Having to plan meetings,
survey students, and make a yearbook after a few years without one has been an extremely
difficult process. However it’s because of the difficulty that I think the yearbook club is special
to me in a way that the other clubs aren’t. Additionally, I have been taking Dual Enrollment
classes in the morning, and completing credits for college. They aren’t very interesting but I’m
still glad that I’m taking them and preparing for the future.
As the end of my high school career approached, I was forced to lock down my after
school plans. I was still conflicted because cooking was the only thing I could think about
turning into a career. It was one of the few things I was really interested in, but for some reason it
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didn’t feel right. I decided to talk to my dad, and we ended up having a long conversation about
what I liked to do and my interests. I told him about the YouTubers I liked to watch, people who
made some of the coolest things I had ever seen. They built the weapons and tools I spent my
childhood enviously admiring. It was awesome, and something I hadn’t even thought about
attempting. My dad suggested that I look into engineering, he said it sounded a lot like what I
was talking about. The more and more I thought about it I realized he was right, I liked it a lot. I
wanted to be able to make the props and tools from the movies that I’ve loved since childhood.
This quote best summarizes why I love engineering is that, “the creative engineer is changing the
way we live and work as creativity often spurs innovation! It was a creative engineer who
converted another glue-based project into Sticky Notes,” (Top Personality Traits of Engineers). I
applied to multiple schools for Mechanical Engineering, and am currently waiting to hear back
from them.
Future Goals
Even though I settled on my career recently, I still have goals that I’m shooting for. First,
I want to fully learn mechanical engineering, and have a deep understanding of the field. Of
course I want to be able to make a difference, but I also want to use my knowledge in mechanical
engineering to build cool and fun new things. Most toys, or cool inventions were built off of
other more serious mechanisms. The Super Soaker is a great example as,“Johnson’s longtime
research focuses on energy technology, and his well-known toy resulted from his work on an
environmentally friendly heat pump.”(Lonnie Johnson). Second, I want to learn how to make
basic home and auto repairs. Repairs are expensive and I want to be able to help myself and
others solve problems without having to spend a fortune. Third, I want to make sure that the job I
find after college pays well, and is able to help me prepare other life goals. Fourth, I want to
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open my own business, owning a business comes with a lot of perks. With the business, I can
help other people learn how engineering works, and maybe inspire others to pursue the same
career, which is actually my final life goal, to help others become engineers; engineers pave the
path to the future, and the more there are the better.
Route
Therefore, to help me reach these goals I planned out the steps necessary to achieve them. The
first thing I have to do is decide which college I’m going to, and figure out my living situation.
Afterwards I have to ensure that this summer I get a job and start saving up to move out when
college starts. As the college year gets closer, I’ll need to start looking for a job near the campus,
and start applying. Once I have a job and consistent wage, I’ll need to plan out a budget,
covering every aspect of my spending and making sure that I save enough money to pay off any
loans or debt I still have. Then I can finally start attending college, and begin working towards
my degree in Mechanical Engineering. Once I finally get to college, I plan on joining at least one
after school club that can relate to my major in some way. Building onto my skill sets, and
meeting new people is really important at this time. Making sure I use the resources that college
provides is essential. While attending college, I want to make sure that I keep an eye out for any
internships or jobs the campus advertises; the goal is to find jobs for after school. The work
doesn’t stop, and once I graduate I have to keep working hard to meet my goals. I plan on
working for a company, building experience, and eventually earning an average salary. During
that time, I plan on sticking to a strict budget, saving up to money, and paying off any student
loans. Finally, I can get to the last part of my plan, to find an affordable building in Michigan,
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and open my own business. I want to offer internships, and positions to college students, or
Conclusion
When I was growing up, I didn’t really think much about my life after high school, and
whenever anyone asked, I didn’t have an answer. I feel like you're expected to have some great
calling, like as a kid adults expect you to find a career and stick to it. That never happened for
me. I had to sit down and make a decision, and even now I’m not sure, but I can say that I’m
Works Cited
“Lonnie Johnson.” Learn About Famous Inventors Who Have Changed the
https://www.invent.org/inductees/lonnie-johnson#:~:text=Engineer%20and
%20entrepreneur%20Lonnie%20Johnson,an%20environmentally%20friendly%20heat
%20pump
https://online.kettering.edu/news/2016/10/06/top-personality-traits-engineers