Hello Class of 2023! Welcome to Rice University! We are so incredibly excited for you to become a part of our great community, and can’t wait for you to experience everything that this university has to offer. On behalf of the Rice Center for Engineering Leadership (RCEL), welcome!
My name is Alejandro Toscano Rodriguez, and I am lucky enough to have the pleasure of serving as Student Director of RCEL for this 2019-2020 year. I started my Rice career as a Mechanical Engineering freshman three years ago, with hundreds of questions about college and hundreds of fears as well. However, I knew that I wanted to try as many things as possible, and I wanted to find experiences that would help me grow throughout my time here. And that’s how I found RCEL.
As you can probably tell from my position as director, I am a huge supporter of RCEL. Many Rice students will come to know about the Certificate of Engineering Leadership that many of us pursue through RCEL, but it offers much more than that. I’d like to share with you some of the things that make RCEL such a powerful program.
Let’s start with the RCEL Certificate of Engineering Leadership. The easiest way to think about the Certificate is to picture it as a “mini-minor,” with courses that cover topics such as leadership, communication, program management, empowerment & delegation, building power & influence, and more. Here’s a brief list of some of the reasons why so many of us have chosen to pursue this Certificate:
- The RCEL Certificate involves a combination of lectures, projects, labs, and leadership opportunities. You’ll get to learn about leadership principles, have real leadership experience through in-class challenges and out-of-class experiences, and gain exposure to engineering leaders. Our students get to practice and apply skills through their classes, group projects, extracurricular activities, internships, research, and of course, their careers.
- It’s only 11 credits.Most of our students spread the Certificate courses throughout all four years of their college career, so they do not get in the way of their other college commitments. RCEL was designed to be accessible to all engineering students, regardless of your major(s) or minor(s). The flexibility of the program gives you the power to choose when you want to take our classes. I’ve known students who take all four years to go through the program, and others that have finished it within two years. It’s really up to you!
- It’sa perfect opportunity to connect with like-minded engineering students that want to pursue leadership. One of the things that I love most about Rice is how many opportunities there are to build relationships with other passionate students, and this Certificate is no different. It’s a great way to meet engineering students who may not be pursuing the same major as you, but who have the same interest in developing their leadership skills. It’s also a great first step to becoming an involved part of our RCEL community.
RCEL offers much more in addition to the Certificate. Some of the other opportunities that we offer our students include:
- Industry Mentorship– One-on-one mentorship with an engineer!
- Peer2Peer Mentorship– one-on-one mentorship with an upperclassman!
- Community Events– social events with food and games!
- Panels – Q&As for industry and student panels!
- Splashdown – group engineering challenge at the Gibbs Rec Center swimming pool!
- TA / Coaching– upperclassmen coach/TA underclassmen in RCEL courses!
- Student Leadership– leadership team that works with faculty to create events and opportunities for students!
If any of this sounds appealing to you, we’d love to meet and talk to you! You can find out more about RCEL at rcelconnect.org, and I encourage you to email me at at44@rice.eduto connect with me. I make it a priority to be accessible to fellow students, and I would be happy to answer any questions you may have!
On behalf of all of us here at RCEL, we wish you a very exciting and successful freshman year. See you around campus!
Alejandro Toscano Rodriguez is a senior mechanical engineering major from Monterrey, Mexico, and is a part of Brown College. He serves as Student Director for RCEL as well as a teaching assistant in the Certificate courses. Alejandro is a project lead for Rice Eclipse’s Titan Team, and is also actively involved in the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS), and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). You will always find him at one of his two favorite locations on campus: the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen (OEDK) or the Rice Coffeehouse! He loves meeting new students, so say hi if you see him!