My name is Anastasia Green, and I am an Aerospace Engineering major. This will be my third year at UCF. In 2019 I finished my high school career in a homeschool program through FLVS. So far some of my favorite classes have been Engineering Methods and Concepts. This is a course that is required for all engineering majors at UCF and is really interesting. In Engineering Methods and Concepts, we went over many of the major concepts of engineering along with ethics and what disciplines in engineering are covered. However, my favorite portion of this course was the lab portion. You and your peers come together in teams of your choosing to design and build a boat to participate in the Great Navel Orange race. My team and I actually ended up with a design primarily of LEGOs and it was pretty good. One of my favorite professors at UCF though is Arielle Gaudiello. I had her for both Calculus 2 and 3. I honestly wish that she taught Calculus 1 and Differential Equations because honestly she is just that good in my opinion. She made the subject material easy to understand and if a student was struggling with the material, her door was always open to help guide them to the right path. She didn’t just say what to do, she also explained everything that went into what was being done and if someone had a question in the middle of class, she was willing to answer it then and there in a succinct and efficient manner that effectively communicated the answer while making sense to everyone in the room. At first, I honestly decided to join the GEMS program so that I would have access to more resources with regards to advice and opportunities. I didn’t really expect much else from the program other than that. However, now I am a part of this program not just for access to people with wonderful advice, but also for the community and to be able to impart what I have learned to others so that it might help them as well. I hope to be able to support and help any mentees that I have in achieving their goals in any way I can. In my free time, I like to read, play video games, solve puzzles, and hang out with my sister.

Words of advice for GEMS freshman students: Don’t restrict yourself to just one or two opportunities, apply for anything and everything that catches your interest. Just because you don’t think you have the experiences/skills they want in your resume doesn’t mean that you automatically won’t get it.