Who am I?

Hello, my name is Joshua Aviles. I would like to tell you some things about myself. Personally, I think the best way to get to know people is for people to understand where you come from. So I shall start now.

Background

I was born in 1995 to a Mexican mother and a Salvadoran father in a hospital in Glendale, California. However, I ultimately grew up in a well-to-do neighborhood in Alhambra, CA which at the time of my birth was notably unusual for a Hispanic family. You see, my parents had to work hard to get where they got to by the time I was born during a time when Hispanics had just started making headway in the world of higher education in the United States. There, already, was partially where my inspiration for success came from. From a small age, I was exposed to education as a powerful tool for personal advancement, enlightenment, and a way to pursue your dreams. PBS was the TV channel which really enriched my childhood to no end. As I grew up, I engendered a mentality to work hard which surprised everyone around me. I made huge gains in middle school and eventually high school. For middle school, I went a private, Christian school called San Gabriel Christian School (they have since changed their name to San Gabriel Unified Church and Christian School since I left). For high school, I went to a public school named Alhambra High School. During high school was when I started discovering things about myself. One of those things was engineering. So, I joined my high school's Mathematics, Engineering, and Science Achievement organization. 4 years of projects and getting to know everyone around me made me realize how excellent it was that I became exposed to engineering for such a long time in my high school years. By my junior year of high school, I definitely knew I was going to be an engineer after obtaining awards during a competition for a relatively successful wind energy project me and a couple of other teammates chose to do for a MESA competition. Now, after a couple of years I am here posting this blog post for the University of Michigan's UROP Summer Fellowship.

Academic/Career Goals

Ever since I was little, I always knew my path to success was through involvement somehow in the aviation or space business. Since I was 8 years old, I would read books of rockets, aircraft, and everything in between (an example of one). So, my current intended major at the University of Michigan is Aerospace Engineering with a focus on space systems. My ultimate intended focus while being at the University of Michigan for now is propulsion. Propulsion engineering is the study of the design, build, and test of engines intended to make a vehicle move forward in a medium under its own power (90-95% of the time, it would be air that the engineers are designing this propulsion for, the rest could be a vacuum or even a gas not in our earth's atmosphere). I became fascinated in propulsion engineering because I made a presentation during the Summer of 2013 for the National Academy of Engineering's Grand Engineering Challenges. Our specific subject was the challenge of nuclear fusion and how to obtain energy from such a revolutionary process. Each of our teammates for the presentation would do an aspect of nuclear fusion engineering based on what their major was (ex: The Mechanical Engineering guy would present on fusion engineering applied to him.). As an Aerospace engineer, I presented NASA's work on fusion propulsion to Mars and other planets. While researching, I became fascinated with the prospects of this technology. Hence, I got into the concept of nuclear propulsion and other forms of propulsion. I feel that technology like this will take us very far in the field of space exploration. So, my academic goals are to get a B.S.E. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Michigan, then to get a M.Engin in Space Engineering from the University of Michigan. Afterwards, I may get a full-time job working for NASA or SpaceX or continue into getting a Doctorate Degree from either Cornell University, MIT, or Stanford University in Propulsion Engineering.

Hobbies and Interests

Outside of school on a not-as-busy day, my daily activities may consist of a little running (preferably in a park like the Arboretum), listening to music, a little reading (favorite magazines are Popular Science and Popular Mechanics), watching Youtube videos (favorite channels are Veritasium, Vsauce, VICE News, and Alltime10s), a little blogging, and video games (favorite games are Battlefield 3 and Black Ops). My interests consist of aviation, space, rocketry, technology, science, and history (I used to read a lot but since college my reading of physical books has gone down in favor of internet browsing and such).

The Most Interesting or Unusual Thing About You

Probably the most interesting thing about myself is that I have a large imagination. Sometimes, during a random part of the day I would think of the most fantastic thoughts (e.g.: A Star Wars-style battle in space utilizing technology actually practical in our universe of physics instead of utilizing fantastic, unrealistic methods of travel in space). I could write entire stories based on what I imagine during the day, in fact I have an entire blog dedicated to this (ask me about it if interested!).