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ECE Alumnus Addresses New Engineering Cougars
By
Esmeralda Fisher
Tony Kim (BSEE ’09) speaks to new engineering students at the 2012 PROMES Maximize Your Power event.
Tony Kim (BSEE ’09) speaks to new engineering students at the 2012 PROMES Maximize Your Power event.

It's fair to characterize Tony Kim (BSEE '09) as the quintessential star student. During his academic career at the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering, Kim built quite a list of accomplishments. Among his achievements: he was active in four national honor societies, was named Greek Man of the Year, was a three-time intramural weightlifting champion, served as the National Academic Chair for Lambda Phi Epsilon, and graduated magna cum laude.

What that list only hints at is the personal and professional transformation that Kim experienced as an Engineering Cougar. How did he become a fully engaged student while at UH? That was the message he delivered to new engineering students as the keynote speaker at the Maximize Your Power event held on September 7, hosted by the UH Program for Mastery in Engineering Studies (PROMES). The annual event officially kicks off the semester for the PROMES community at Cullen College.

As an undergraduate, Kim flourished as he inspired other engineering undergrads to focus on success. But it had been eight years since he was a college freshman, so when Dr. Kathy Zerda and Mr. John Matthews, both of PROMES, asked him to deliver the keynote speech, he was admittedly apprehensive. "I used to give talks in college, and back then it was easy for me to do because I was still in school," Kim said. "I knew what other students were thinking and feeling, what their worries, doubts, fears and concerns were. I was able to easily connect and communicate with them." What he addressed to the students at the PROMES event were some plain and simple words of wisdom – how he was able to push through the doubts, fears and concerns.

Kim’s path to engineering started while at Mayde Creek High School. "I was about to graduate, and I had no idea what I wanted to do," Kim recalled. "A good friend of mine who had similar interests was going to UH to study electrical engineering (EE). I didn’t know too much about it."

His friend’s talk of EE piqued his interest, so Kim applied at UH, and was rewarded in a big way, receiving scholarships and financial aid that would pay for his entire academic career. Nevertheless, Kim felt ambivalent about UH early on. "I didn’t have any school pride, and I was stuck here with no friends," Kim said. "In life, you can’t really change the cards you’re dealt. I couldn’t change the fact that I was at UH, but I could change the way I decided to play those cards."

Although Kim had always excelled in math and science, the rigorous engineering curriculum came as a shock during his freshman year. It wasn’t easy, but his interest in engineering only grew stronger. He also became involved with PROMES, which made college life more fulfilling. "Some of the most valuable life lessons I learned outside of the classroom," he said. In class you learn your technical stuff, but when you get involved with organizations, you learn people skills, organizational and management skills, the things you need to excel at work and in life."

For his first semester, Mr. Matthews encouraged him to sign up for 18 hours. "All the other people I knew were just taking 12," Kim said incredulously. "Some were classes for which I had received AP credit in high school, like calculus! Mr. Matthews told me to take it again." He followed Mr. Matthews’ advice – and made a 4.0.

"It’s hard to see the picture when you’re in the frame, but Mr. Matthews saw the potential in me," Kim said. He became more involved with PROMES by becoming the facilitator of the Intro to Engineering class. "That was the first time I realized that the focus wasn’t on me, but on me helping others, teaching values to students on how to be successful," he said. Kim went on to teach Calculus 1 and 2 through the remainder of his undergraduate career.

Kim quickly learned that electrical engineering is a broad field. His two internships demonstrated the range of opportunities available for EE majors – they were significantly different from one another. "My first internship was at Broadcom, a semiconductor company. I worked on Bluetooth chips, testing it out on cell phones and laptops. It was fun and I learned a lot, but I wanted to get more hands-on field exposure. That’s when I started looking into more of the oil and gas companies," he said.

Kim's second internship was at the BP Texas City refinery. "I found out how complex and vast it was," he said. "I decided then that I was going to work in oil and gas." The field experience was eye-opening. "It was good exposure, learning how oil in the ground is made into gasoline."

Kim noted that, for EE majors interested in going into the oil and gas industry, there are three general fields of opportunity: power distribution, instrumentation (devices that measure level, temperature pressure, and flow rates), or control/automation (remote operation).

A full-time BP employee since 2009, Kim’s number one lesson out of college was that learning doesn’t stop after college. "You graduate and you think you should know something, but you quickly find out just how much you don’t know," he said in jest. "There’s no way you can learn everything immediately, but the key is knowing where to find answers."

Kim participated in the new hire program at BP, in which college graduates go through on-the-job training over a course of three years. Training includes courses in areas such as programmable logic controllers; field activities, such as observing a field installation or participating in hazardous operability study and layer of protection analysis; and mentorship with a technical coach.

At the PROMES event, Kim passed along a few bits of wisdom to novice engineering students. The best advice? "Don’t ever get into a situation where you’re just accepting life, like that’s the way things are and have always been," Kim mused. "You have to lead it; you have to become the change you want to see."

He emphasized the impact that networks play in academic and professional success. "Choose your inner circle wisely, your ‘board of directors,’ those that are closest to you. They will determine how well you do. If you hang out with a bunch of party animals, you’re going to become a party animal. Make sure you have the right people on your team." Kim developed a network of upperclassmen for advice on everything from which professors to take and how to plan out courses, to getting his résumé in the right hands. "If you know your upperclassmen really well, your chances of success are a lot greater," he added.

Kim lauded PROMES for its role in engineering students’ academic success. "Dr. Zerda and Mr. Matthews want to see you succeed. They give a tremendous amount of effort in helping you. I was very fortunate that program existed at UH because I don’t think my engineering experience would have been very fulfilling had it not been for the PROMES program."

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