(pleasant music)
My name is Michelle Espinal.
I'm from Chinandega, Nicaragua.
That's in Central America.
My current major here at Saint Mary's is mathematics
and then I'm a civil engineer at Notre Dame.
One of the reasons why I chose civil engineering
is because you help people.
You use your major to, you know, help people
and work with them, and at the same time
it sounds cliche but you make
a better world for someone else that besides yourself.
The project that I worked with this past summer,
we planned, designed, fundraised
and then built a foot bridge in a community in Nicaragua
that was not able to cross the river during
the rainy season because it floods.
River was so dangerous.
We have the middle school is on the other side of the river.
They are going to school.
I mean it's kids
and that's a huge risk because mothers
would tie ropes to them in order
to cross them to the other side safely.
That was just really sad to hear
that they had to put all of that effort
in order to do something that we do every day.
(gentle guitar music)
The building of the foot bridge, that was intense.
That's the word that defines that.
Just picture engineering student my age
digging excavations, picking up buckets full of gravel,
full of sand, full of cement.
Getting dirty every single day.
Working from five in the morning 'til 9:00 p.m.
(upbeat music)
The day the bridge was complete was amazing.
Everyone celebrated.
And after we were done, all of my classmates
and I would lay on the bridge for a solid two hours
and we were just like wow, we're done.
This just happened.
That was, that was biggest engineering challenge.
The classes that I've taken here,
they have opened my mind in a way
that I cannot believe.
(upbeat music)
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