“As an Asian-American, I am forever tagged with a hyphen. It is an emblem that I see as a bridge— an intersection between the different worlds that make me, well, me!

I grew up along the ocean shores of Hong Kong, an international playground where the number of cultures matched the countless grains of sand beneath my feet. We celebrated holidays and saw performances from all over the world. It was during my eight years there, before I moved to the USA, that I fell in love with magic shows. So, while in school, this love of magic developed into a love of electrical engineering, because being able to speak to my grandmother in China from Utah is nothing short of magic.

In my teen years, I did an early college program at Weber State University. Then, I studied engineering at Utah State University before I made the best decision ever and transferred to the University of Utah. Although I enjoyed my earlier college experiences, my time at the U has been dramatically different. Even though the U is larger, the community has felt more personal — my professors felt more like my personal advocates, I developed a friend group that spanned multiple majors and various cultural backgrounds, and I grew to love being on campus every day.

Studying engineering challenges your mind to solve problems in completely new ways. Development and iterations of a product are hardly ever straightforward, so you must think outside the box. More specifically, electrical engineering requires considering both the physical world — how people interact with the product— and the invisible world of tiny electrons that make the product “tick.” As someone from two cultures, intersections have always been an important part of my life. I value working in a field where the bridge between these two worlds is as real as the bridge between my two cultures.

Furthermore, the U’s Engineering Entrepreneurship program, directed by Dr. Ryan Brown, changed my life. I have always been outgoing, but I’ve finished my engineering degree having learned how to harness that extroversion in my articulations and teamwork, which has allowed me to use my strengths for the good of the group. Dr. Brown’s classes brought that out of me, and for that I’m grateful and will benefit forever. I simply haven’t been in a class like his in my sojourn through electrical engineering and agree that engineering can, indeed, be taught well through the Socratic method. It challenged me and my peers in ways that fortified our minds and voices.

As such, my time at the U has been about using my voice as much as my mind. It’s here where I have learned how to leverage my personality and my abilities in a way to help everyone succeed. For example, I attended a career fair at the U wearing a bold trifold sign. See, as engineers we solve problems, and my problems at that career fair were standing out from a crowd of equally talented friends and how to break the ice with recruiters in a memorable way. So, my big, red, outlandishly obvious, problem-solving, ice-breaking sign said: “Let’s talk about why you should hire me!” This sign then opened up and inside there was my resume and a QR code to my LinkedIn that got the conversation rolling.

Through this outlandish confidence, I received an awesome internship opportunity, but my success didn’t stop there. At the next career fair, I donned my trifold again and a recruiter from L3Harris remembered me and this connection helped me get a job there. However, perhaps the conversations and interactions I will cherish the most are the ones with my fellow classmates. Who, perhaps, through this display of audacity, may have gained the confidence to simply be themselves— and maybe even one-up me next time. Because at the very least, I’ve learned that it pays to use your natural skills, and also to push yourself.

Put simply, while at the U, I have learned that some of the most powerful ideas do not come from choosing one side, but from standing in the space between and building bridges. As I go out into the world, I look forward to continuing the work of being a connector and of being myself.”

— Ian Martin, Class of 2025, B.S. in Electrical Engineering, College of Engineering, from Bountiful, Utah