What’s your origin story? My name is Justine Candelaria and I was born and raised in El Paso Texas. I graduated as Valedictorian of my highschool and became the first person from my school to get accepted to a prestigious university. I’m now studying Mechanical Engineering at Rice. After competing at the Vex World Championship in robotics for years, my love for coding and building became more apparent. I’m fascinated with the animatronics on Disneyland rides, (especially the Rise of the Resistance ride because it’s animatronics are top tier.) so I thought Mechanical Engineering would be the perfect degree for me to study.
If I never had to work or study again I would be an artist. I love drawing. I could sit and draw for hours and hours, that’s what I did on the 10 hour flight over here haha.
I chose to study abroad this summer to expand my horizons, skills, and experience. I have never been to Europe so I thought this program would be a good way for me to get a new perspective on things such as everyday life as well as architecture, designing, and engineering.
Outside of the course I’m most excited to explore. I really like how green it is over here. (even though my allergies are currently acting up-) I want to walk around and see how pretty nature can be. I also want to experience things we don’t have normally in the United States such as the canal boat rides and easily walkable cities. I also hear the desserts are great!
In aspects of my life such as school or exploring I like to be very deliberate when planning. I have a google calendar I will color code and write times very specifically. I like to plan out my day in advance with where I’m going, what I’m going to do, and at what time. As well as back ups for those places incase something comes up and plans must change. Such as an unexpected closure of a museum I wanted to see.
It was interesting to meet the university of Amsterdam students because most of them weren’t even from Amsterdam. A lot of the students we met were from other places like Poland and just traveled to come to school. They were also older than us with their ages ranging from 21-23.
Some flicks from today and yesterday and the song of the day.
