Virella 1

Ramon Virella

J. Snyder

Capstone Rough Draft 2023

20 March 2023

I’ve Gotta Hand it To You/ I’ve Got It HANDled

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

Tuesdays, but it’s time for tomorrow.

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,

but that initial purpose is still there.

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

A goal without a plan is as pointless as an overused crayon in a kindergarten classroom.

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

others interested in the field of engineering.

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

excited to see how it goes.

Works Cited

“Lonnie Johnson.” Learn About Famous Inventors Who Have Changed the

World, National Inventors Hall of Fame, 2023,

https://www.invent.org/inductees/lonnie-johnson#:~:text=Engineer%20and

%20entrepreneur%20Lonnie%20Johnson,an%20environmentally%20friendly%20heat

%20pump

“Top Personality Traits of Engineers.” Top Personality Traits of Engineers | Kettering

Online, Kettering University , 6 Oct. 2016,

https://online.kettering.edu/news/2016/10/06/top-personality-traits-engineers