3/19/2019 Graduate Spotlight: Axel Besa
Outside of that, I am on year three of my clothing brand, which at the moment I’m working on a rebrand in order to drive in a new direction and reach a wider audience. Again, I know fashion seems to be a nontraditional outlet for most engineering students but that’s where my creativity stems from. My end goal is to find a way to crossover the skills learned in engineering with my skills learned in fashion and create something big, hopefully giving other students an example that you don’t have to be 100% engineer to achieve what you want in this field. Last, but certainly not least, I am apart of a non profit organization called LoveBound International that is dedicated to improving the health and social wellbeing of individuals and communities that we serve. At the moment we are focused on the Siala Village, Rongo sub-county in Migori County, and Kenya, but we hope to spread out our efforts across other countries in Africa. Before joining the STEM Academy, I never had a problem with public speaking but that doesn’t necessarily mean I was good at it to begin with. STEM really helped me fine tune my public speaking skills by: reducing the amount of verbal fillers I use, improving on my hand motions, and improving on my body language. Just helping me gain my overall confidence so whether I’m in front of 2 people or 200 people, I’m always well prepared. Another thing I learned was that you should never be afraid to fail because with failure also comes success. Everything sounds crazy until you do it, so no matter how wild an idea might sound, as long as you don’t neglect the execution you can achieve it. Michelangelo said it best: “The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.” Family was something STEM taught me as well. Most of my friends that I had in regular classes - I have no idea where they are in their lives now or what they’re doing, but I can say I’m still as close with most of the friends I made in STEM, if not closer. It’s just natural for us for check up on each other. Yes, spending 4 years seeing the same faces everyday definitely helps with that, but it never feels forced. It’s always genuine because we really are a family. Most importantly, STEM taught me a lot about character and work ethic. What makes STEM so unique is that while we do have teachers that will lead lesson plans and discussions, after that point us as students are on our own. So it’s up to us to remind ourselves when stuff is due. STEM also taught me to put in extra time and effort on assignments - to not settle for the A but get that A+, because the test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is watching The experience that made the biggest impact on me was one that I can’t remember the exact name of the event, but it was near the end of my Senior year. We were presenting just about every project we had done in STEM in front of very important NISD staff and I was just so amazed at the feedback we were receiving. They were all engaged in our presentations, actively listening and learning from us. You could definitely tell they were interested in what we had worked on by the type of questions they were asking. That day I didn’t feel like a STEM student presenting to adults. I felt like were being viewed as the future engineers we aspired to be and they were valuing us as such. It was just an amazing feeling. Want to read about more CTE graduates? Click here!
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