When Urvi Bhatia learned she was the Outstanding Senior at the Cullen College of Engineering for the 2025–26 academic year, she admitted with a laugh that she was “a little taken aback.”
The soon-to-be mechanical engineering graduate received the department-level award as a junior for 2024–25, but she wasn’t expecting the college-wide distinction this year.
“I felt very honored,” she said. “I felt like it was a good way to end my undergraduate career, going off on a high note. And it felt kind of validating of the hard work I’ve been doing over the past four years. This semester is the first time I’m taking less credit hours, so I have more time to enjoy my senior year.”
Qualifying as a Tier One Scholar and her ties to the area as a graduate of Michael E. DeBakey High School in the Houstin Independent School District helped Bhatia decide on UH for her undergraduate degree. She didn’t initially plan to study engineering at UH, starting out as an architecture student. However, her plans changed as she was preparing for college, because she realized — in her words — that she couldn’t draw a straight line.
When reflecting on memories of her childhood, she said it should have been obvious that engineering was in her future.
“I would like to help my dad around the house. He would be the handyman and fix things,” she said. “But I remember one time I just took apart our toaster for no reason, just to see how it works inside. I don’t know if I put it back together or not, but I had my Lego phase and everything. I think it kind of made sense, really, to go into engineering.”
Bhatia attributed her academic success to a combination of honors program enrollment, research lab enrollment and keeping active with a variety of UH and Cullen organizations. She distinctly recalled one time that she was studying for an exam with seven other students during a professor’s office hours, enjoying that communal feel as they worked through a problem together.
Yashashree Kulkarni, Bill D. Cook Professor of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering and the Director of Research Computing, gave Bhatia the opportunity to do research as part of her group while an undergraduate.
At UH, Bhatia developed her networking and outreach skills as well. She is a general member of the Society of Women Engineers and served as an officer for two years. She has also served on various committees and as a career ambassador for the Engineering Career Center. She got her first internship experience thanks to attending a SWE conference in Los Angeles.
After Bhatia got off the plane, she made small talk with a group of women she realized were also going to the conference, and she split the cost of a taxi ride with one of them. She said she had no conscious intentions of networking, but that woman was the vice president in human resources at Airbus and told Bhatia to find her at the conference.
When she asked for the VP, she was ushered to a booth to interview on the spot. She ended up getting an offer for an internship before she even filled out an application on their website.
“That was a really cool thing,” she said of the whole experience, adding that it wouldn’t have been possible without the experiences she acquired as an undergraduate.
“Something that helped me be brave enough to talk to her, because I had no reason to share a taxi with her besides saving money, was being part of the Engineering Career Fair committee. I joined through SWE and worked with Janice Quiroz in the Career Center to plan a career fair and other professional events, like mock interview day, resume cafe, networking socials. That forced me to get out of my shell and talk to people, both a lot more public speaking and a lot more random, small talk kind of conversations. That really helped me naturally make connections in my network that have landed me different job opportunities, and research and extracurricular opportunities.”
After graduation, Bhatia will be starting as a hardware engineer at Dell in the Austin metro area. She said she might pursue an MBA or a master’s degree in engineering, but she absolutely wanted to stay involved with SWE and similar organizations as a result of the positive experience she had with it.
“I’ve always liked that kind of community. I want to continue that work, and then, I think it would be fun to return to the UH Career Fair or the SWE National Conference Career Fair, but from the recruiter side.”
This year’s Outstanding Junior is Reagan Kimberly, an industrial engineering student. A profile story on Reagan can be read here!