College of Engineering Outstanding Senior: Julia Riley

I would sum up my experience at Virginia Tech as growth. When I first came to Virginia Tech. I just remember being so nervous. I was always interested in how the body worked. When I got to Virginia Tech and I started talking to a lot of the engineers, I realized a lot of the things that I wanted to do with medicine I could do with engineering. The introduction to engineering classes were really helpful because I knew I wanted to do something with engineering. I don't think I would have found out about my major without it. My major is biological systems engineering. It's a very nice major and it's a very small major. Starting my major at the height of COVID was kind of hard because it was difficult to find your friends and kind of hard to meet the people in your classes. The, my name is Julia Riley. I'm in the American Society of agricultural and biological engineers. Sabi was kind of like this light that really made VS feel like home for me. Being on ec for Savi has been really helpful for me to just have leadership roles in the experience reaching out to people in industry and kind of have those communication skills that I'll need later on in life. I've had good mentors of women in science and women in research careers. I ended up doing research with doctor Johnson over the summer for my first internship. She was nice enough to let me come in and eventually start volunteering and then getting more involved in the lab. But she's really encouraged me to have bigger ambitions for what I want to do. My favorite internship was my most recent one at the NV Shar Cancer Institute. It was kind of combining all the things that I'm passionate about. I applied to it because it's where my mom received cancer treatment. It kind of felt like I was in the right place at the right time being able to learn more about what I want to do in place that was special to her, also. I would describe Virginia Tech as a big place with a big heart. You find your group of people, and it's just a place of so many possibilities. I just kind of opened up all these doors for me about things that I never imagined I could do. My name is Julia Oley. I'm from Chantilly, Virginia, and my major is biological systems engineering.