The path to satisfying jobs looks a lot brighter for the future engineering grad- uates of Texas A&M University-Kings- ville, as many gathered around to listen to the words of Rolando Garcia, major projects manager at Exxon Mobil.
Garcia, a Texas A&I Alumnus, gradu- ated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering.
Hehashadalengthyamountoftime working at Exxon Mobil as a Projects Executive but moved his way up to Ma- jor Projects Manager.
However, Garcia was surprised that Exxon brought him on because civ- il engineers aren’t exactly what they look for. Garcia since then has overseen many projects.
However, it wasn’t always so straight forward for Garcia.
“I used to work at a photo store when I got out of high school …at one point the manager liked me and he wanted to make me manager at one of his stores there…you’re talking to a kid in high school, whose making minimum wage and he starts talking about making X amount of wage. It wasn’t a lot more than minimum wage, but it was more,”
Garcia said, “my dad told me ‘look if you have the ca- pability to go to college, then do it. Why would you stop’?”
One student was eager to ask who inspired Garcia to become who he wanted to become.
“So my dad didn’t have the ed- ucation that I had, but one thing he did do was he em- phasized to me you know get in school stay in school and do well… as a man he was relatively intelligent but he just didn’t have the level of education opportunities, but he was a mentor to me,” Garcia said.
Garcia presented his experiences as if they could have happened to anyone. Also, there were some tips that students could learn from.
“I learned a lot in business class and that seems to be important at Exxon, they do some engineering, but I feel like business is important, too,” Abigail Gritton, architectural engineer major, said.
Afterwards, it seemed like there were many students who were approaching graduation and worried about whether they were going to be successful.
However, Garcia made it known that there is still hope.
“After hearing him and his experience it made me realize there is hope. There is a chance for me to actually get in a ca- reer field I want to be,” Georgiana Gal- legos, architectural engineer major, said.
“He [Garcia] seems happy and fi- nancially stable and that’s really what I want, to be happy and go to a job I want to go to, and enough money to supportmy wants and needs. And to look back and be thankful that I worked hard through college,” she said.
Garcia’s presentation hit the note that despite the future looking vague and students may want to quit and settle for less, it’s better to keep going since the students have the educational oppor- tunities to complete college and they should stick to it.
Many students believe that it worked out well for Garcia, so it can work out for them, too.