An informative podcast from your elected UNLV Student Government Officials.
Unknown Speaker 0:03
Okay, so hi rebels. My name is Isaac Hernandez. I'm the current student body president, y'all.
Unknown Speaker 0:09
My name is Diana amonkar. I am the current student body vice president. And we are yours in unity.
Unknown Speaker 0:18
And we are back, folks. But this week is a very, very special week. The last segment that we did have we brought in sci fi club and also Nami, here, the chapter from UNLV. But this segment is a little bit different. Today, we're going to be doing a student spotlight for someone that we have been paying very close attention to for their phenomenal work. And today we have Peter mon teach. Thanks for having me. Yeah. And Peter, would you like to kind of dive into you know, who you are, what you do? What your class standing is?
Unknown Speaker 0:53
Sure. So I am a fourth year mechanical engineering major here at UNLV. Currently, I'm an intern at the boring company here in Vegas. So a lot of my background actually before working there, as an aerospace, I have a lot of experience working on spacecraft design, working on satellites at Firefly aerospace and NASA a couple of times as well.
Unknown Speaker 1:18
That's awesome. So, I mean, for those that don't know of what the boring company is, I'm I mean, could you talk a little bit about what the boring company does do?
Unknown Speaker 1:27
Yeah, definitely. So pretty much if you if you think about how trains are today, right? You, you have these subway stations where you want to get from point A to point B. And there can be a lot of traffic congestion, you have to stop at every single station. And nobody really likes that sort of thing. The boring company, which is a company, started off by Elon Musk a couple of years back wanted to I guess, alleviate that issue. He was driving through LA a couple years back and was just super frustrated with the the traffic congestion that he was caught in. And he really wanted somebody to tackle the challenge of alleviating that traffic congestion through building tunnels, and that's essentially what we do we build tunnels. And the difference between that and your typical subway system is that instead of stopping at every single stop along the way, let's say if you wanted to get from the Mandalay Bay to the stratosphere, you would tell your driver, I want to go to the stratosphere and you'd go straight there. So your runtime would go from, let's say, like 15 minutes all the way down to three to four minutes.
Unknown Speaker 2:46
Wow. Yeah. Well, so what it sounds like is that the boring company is not so boring, and that it actually is very, is very interesting. And in the aspect that it's, it's all about innovation. Absolutely. I think you mentioned, the fact that, you know, the whole purpose behind why it was started was that, you know, you have Elon Musk, who seen an issue had the resources in order to you know, resolve the issue and you bring a team together, and you come up with solutions to a number of the issues that he was seeing on a day to day operation. And I think a lot of the engineering students specifically here at UNLV. They pay close attention to a lot of like infrastructure, just technology in general. And I mean technology in terms of like capital itself, and how you can kind of embrace that into the current world that we have here today. But I'm a bit curious in terms of how you were kind of introduced into the boring company, like was there a certain event that you went to at least here on campus or off campus? Like, I guess, speak from the aspect of maybe a student who was interested in joining, or partaking in that kind of career route that you took, like, how was that? Like, what did that process look like?
Unknown Speaker 4:01
Yeah, definitely. Well, it was definitely a process that that took many years. I remember you know, I was a junior in high school. I was in my English class and my professor actually played the the livestream of SpaceX is made in launch of the the Falcon Heavy rocket. I don't know if you've ever seen that. It's like the the really big rocket where Elon put his own Tesla into space, sent that up there. And ever since then, I knew I was, I definitely want to do something like that. It was an extremely inspiring event that I was able to witness live and I just made it my mission for the next four years in college to take all the steps that I needed along the way to eventually, you know, be able to work with I guess, like crazy people like that because the stuff that they do to me is just super cool. We'll so you know, when I started college, I at that point, I didn't really have any sort of leadership experience at all from high school. So I was kind of just going right into it not really knowing what I was getting myself into. All I knew was, I wanted to create an impact on campus as much as I could, so that eventually somebody from either SpaceX or the boring company could take notice and be like, yes, we want that person on our team. So going into my freshman year, I first got involved with the students for the exploration, development of space sets, UNLV. It's the local rocketry chapter here in Las Vegas, we pretty much just focus on building rockets going out into the desert, launching them, not really exceeding too much, it's like five to 10,000 feet in the year, but still giving you a great learning experience and opportunity to learn more about, you know, the basics of aerodynamics, and how things fly into the air. All these things really taught me, you know, the basics of rocketry. And eventually I was like, Okay, this is cool, but I want to try something new. Why don't I work on satellites instead. And so that's kind of how rubble site UNLV got started. And for some context, that's a another organization here at UNLV, that was founded in fall of 2020, ultimately, with the mission of placing Nevada as the newest state in the country, for putting something into space. So currently, I think there's only a handful of states in the US that haven't launched anything yet, including Nevada. And me being one of the lead engineers on that project, my ultimate goal is to change that and be able to bring that sort of attention to the community. And so that's just like another one of the things that I've been working on. And, you know, just trying to make UNLV a better place for the students, as well as for the faculty here, who come to do their research and stuff like that. And yeah, all in the meantime, I've been able to get those opportunities in the industry, through those projects, starting at NASA for the first time, and then go into the PES gastronomical Research Institute where I worked on pretty much programming code, so that we could track commercial satellites using our big 20 meter antenna in North Carolina, and then going back to NASA to work on some human rated missions, and then go into Firefly into the private industry to work on the Firefly Alpha vehicle, which just launched a couple of weeks ago, if you have the opportunity to check it out. Definitely recommend it. But yeah, eventually getting to the boring company just ultimately, came from the fact that I made a huge network of connections that eventually, you know, I would speak to the recruiter, and they were like, oh, yeah, I heard about your work at UNLV. I think you'd be a great fit for the team. And now I'm here.
Unknown Speaker 8:20
Wow, that I think you've highlighted a number of things that, you know, at least coming from CSUN, we, we do hear from students in the sense that, you know, they, they feel as if there aren't enough opportunities on campus. And sometimes there's certain students that don't feel like there's a community for them to support some of their interests, for sure. And I think one thing that you kind of started off in talking about was, you know, in order to kind of establish a general interest of it, or even enhancing your overall interest in the industry itself, you started out with some student organizations here on campus, you put in the work, but I think you highlighted another characteristic and attribute that a lot of students end up having some difficulty in adjusting to. And one thing that I really acknowledged coming from you is that you're you're very passionate person. And when it comes down to the work, you take initiative, if you really set your mind to something, you're going to do it, you're going to make sure that you do it with full energy, full effort. And I mean, it takes you too long places and, you know, getting involved in a student organization is one thing, but you know, being a leader within those organizations, it definitely sets you apart. It, you know, builds a lot of experience. It builds a lot of skills internally. And, you know, I'm proud of you as a person for, you know, being into or getting into the positions that you're into. And I mean, you're still an undergraduate student here. still pushing through, you're still dealing with the academic aspect of UNLV. But I can tell you're very oriented on just doing as much as you can for yourself and trying to really set yourself apart from some other people that feel like they kind of deserve the handout just because they joined an organization but you yourself, you kind of take the initiative and do a little bit more than what is necessary or honestly, just doing your part and just showing that you're passionate about what you're passionate about. But I'm interested in kind of learning more about some of the student organizations. And this is kind of just based off of a general understanding that students might want to have about maybe I think you said it was salads and rebels SAT? I mean, for those that don't know what those are, could you kind of dive into, you know, what the composition of it what they do, or at least what day to day operations look like?
Unknown Speaker 11:00
Yeah, so yeah, definitely. So I guess I can start off with talking about sets UNLV, since that's where I kind of started off from, like I said, says UNLV is the local chapter here. Love it here in Las Vegas, primarily focused on development, with rockets, as well as professional development. So if that's something that a student would be interested in Said's UNLV would be the go to place for that. Essentially, as a new member, in either sides or rebel side, you know, we're not as a school, we're not, we don't have the biggest aerospace program out there. So we don't really expect folks to come in expecting to know everything, we kind of give them that experience and that technical knowledge that they're looking for. And says, you can pick a project that you want to work on, if you want to focus on the rockets themselves, and you want to work on airframes, you know, you can build your own rocket and the level one or Level Two program. You know, you put it together, you take it out to the desert, and you can fly it with all your friends in the club. And then ultimately, you can even get certified. So that pretty much means is if you can demonstrate that you've designed and put together a rocket that fly successfully lands and hasn't like broken or anything like it can be re flown, right that instant, if you have a new motor, then you get certified. So that pretty much gives you like the legal approval to purchase, I guess, like higher powered motors, which only enables you to further experiment and build bigger and more complicated systems. And you can go all the way up to as I guess, as complicated as you want. There have been teams out there, namely at USC, that have built those really big rockets and have actually passed the threshold of space. So it is something that's feasible. And it's something that we haven't done yet at UNLV. But it's I'm sure something that we really want to eventually get to the point of doing. So that sets UNLV. At rebel side. I think that organization is especially unique because we like they don't necessarily just operate as your average Joe club that you would kind of expect, we don't have presidents, treasurer's secretaries and all that. Instead, we try to really operate as if we were a real, a real world. Small space startup. So if you think like SpaceX rocket lab, Astra, we try to be structured as if we were those organizations, because there's a lot of people with the interests of going into that part of the industry, we want to kind of emulate that experience for them. So that by the time they graduate, and they do their full time interviews with these jobs and companies, they'll be ready. Before rubble stop, that wasn't a thing at UNLV. But now we have that. And we've been able to prove, you know that folks have gotten opportunities as a result of being a part of that experience. Talking places, you know, aside from myself at the boring company, and NASA. We have folks who've been at Blue Origin, SpaceX, Aerojet, Rocketdyne, Tesla, Apple, Microsoft, and a bunch of other places that aren't even necessarily engineering. So we have all the engineering folks working on the satellite. And then we also have the non engineering folks that are focused on the operations side of things. So we're talking about marketing, recruiting, fundraising. So really, if there's like, anything that you're interested in, we more than likely have something available for you to take up. So but yeah, day to day operations. It's pretty active every single day. Uh, so?
Unknown Speaker 15:00
And would you, I guess give some insight in terms of students who are interested in joining either of the organizations like, I know a very common question when it comes down to organizations that are predominantly like, it's composed of students that are within one major. Are the organization's rebel sat and sets? Are they open to all majors? Or do they kind of focus on a few different ones?
Unknown Speaker 15:30
Yeah, so definitely with rebel Saya, and especially rebel saw, we don't really care what background people come from, as long as you know, they're inspired by the mission of rubble site and placing Nevada on the map as a spacefaring state in this country. And they're willing to put in the work for that, that's really all that the recruiters over there look for. I'll give you an example. There's a guy on our communication subsystem. So it's like the group of folks that make sure that we can communicate with the satellite, once it's up. He's a music major. And for a lot of folks, that's something that, you know, you wouldn't necessarily expect to hear from the outset. But he has significantly, you know, taken the effort to put in work that has enabled us to construct our ground station antenna, which currently exists on the top of the science and engineering building. So if anybody's walking by the building, you can look up and you can see that up there. That's the product of a team of at least 5050 folks working together with a diverse background of majors, from music, to engineering, to physics, to criminal justice, to literally whatever. I think it's really nice, because it really shows like, it doesn't matter how complicated a task is, as long as everybody's willing to actually put in the work for it, nothing is really not feasible, like it's always possible.
Unknown Speaker 17:02
Wow, I mean, so if I mean to, I mean, for any student, you know, I would highly encourage to get involved with rebel satin sets, you know, just kind of, as I noted earlier, it kind of comes down to the passion, the general interest of the mission itself. And I always tell people, when it comes down to whether or not they want to get involved in organization, just really think twice. Is there a commitment to what the organization does itself? Is there going to be a time commitment? Is there a moral commitment? Is there a work ethic commitment that comes with it. And I think that's what really sets some organizations apart from others. And I think all of them do phenomenal work. But some of them are a bit more social, others a little bit more professional. But the one thing that I can always attribute to every single one of them is that it always builds a nice social structure to it. And Peter, this is a student spotlight. So I'm kind of curious like, before joining any student organizations, would you say you noticed a great deal of character development prior to joining any organizations to kind of how you see yourself now?
Unknown Speaker 18:16
Yeah, I'm coming out of high school, you know, like, looking at myself today versus where I was coming out of high school, there's a huge difference. I would say that by the time I came out of high school, I absolutely hated public speaking, like I said, I've never had a leadership experience, I kind of just kept to myself, and didn't really want to, I guess, take a risk to do something too crazy. But you know, I figured that if I'm going to college, kind of hitting the reset button on my social life, in a sense, at least like in the situation that I live through, and I was like, Okay, I don't have to worry about anybody else, I can just focus on myself and what I what I would like to get done. And from there, I kind of just as not easy as it was, I had to put myself out there and put myself in these uncomfortable situations that eventually I kind of got used to. But I'm also really glad that I did that because it helped me grow considerably to where I'm at today. And I would I would say that I had noticed the similar trend with a lot of folks here at UNLV that, you know, they want to do something pretty cool. They want to put themselves out there, but they might not necessarily know how to. It's completely fine to feel that way. It's part of the human experience. But I think that if you want something enough, you're going to go out there and get it no matter what it takes.
Unknown Speaker 19:51
Yeah, I agree. It always comes down to just putting in the effort. And I always talk about Generally like with any student that I come across, just like mental health has a hole. And sometimes, you know, we have to show more empathy towards people that just don't have enough strength in them to continue putting in the effort. But that's why I always point people towards student organizations. Because when it comes down to student organizations, there's just always that sense of community. There's a lot of people that I've met, that they'll really just hang around people within the student organizations they're affiliated with, do you think that's the same trend within sad San rebel SAT? Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 20:40
definitely. And real quick, I just wanted to point out, since you mentioned mental health, you know, I feel like coming from myself, it's really easy for somebody who has a lot of ambition, drive and passion to want to take on a lot of things at the same time. Over time, that might not necessarily be the best thing for really anyone because it might ultimately lead to burnout. And I think that's incredibly dangerous to experience just because experience like going through burnout can have the potential of you losing that passion of why you started something in the first place. And that's obviously something that people don't want to do. So I would just say like, for anyone who wants to do something big, at the end of the day, you should prioritize your, your personal and mental health above all else, because if that, if that isn't going well, then honestly, like, what's the point? But to answer your question about, you know, just general community within suds and rebel site, it's pretty tight knit. There are a lot of folks on campus who want to go into rocket science, it's pretty a niche community. So I will say that, you know, usually when you go in there, everybody kind of knows each other. Everyone's super supportive. Again, nobody expects you to know everything. But that's why it's super cool, because everybody wants to help one another, be elevated towards the goals that they're ultimately achieving. And everybody has really big goals. So I think that's some super cool about that. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 22:22
that's awesome. I remember hearing a close mentor of mine, the other day talking about just time in general, and the way that people use it nowadays. And it's an older fellow, has a family has a job, and has a few other hobbies and the side of that, and the one thing that they told me is that now as a college student, this is the most time you're gonna have ever in your lifetime. Once you're older, your priorities will be a little bit different for some people, they want to have a family, they want to pursue different business opportunities, some people want to relocate. So for college students, right now, it's always about development. But touching on the first point that you made with just mental health, we all have this mentality towards like, Let's just all go into grind mode. And let's just all put in the effort now, so it pays off later. And I think I've even notice from a number of students that they're burning out really quick. I don't know, if it's due to just the post pandemic era, it feels like although, I mean, President Biden declared that the pandemic is officially over, but it still feels like we're starting to see some of the after effects of it. And it's impacting students in a number of ways. Students are still dealing with issues at home, they're still dealing with issues internally. And they're still having this sense of having to put an effort in their academic life, and also in their professional life. And we always forget that there's one aspect that's most important and all of that, and that's taking care of yourself, that's the self care. And it's also, you know, being a part of a community. And I think that's what really held a lot of people together. I've lost some friends over the pandemic, due to just my lack of responsiveness because, you know, on my aspect to it wasn't very pretty in terms of how to combat my own kind of self isolation. There was a lot of students that did that, and coming back into campus, with in person classes, you notice that there is more of a desire to talk with people in person. And to me, it was never hard to shift back to that. But it was more some people really needed the help during the pandemic. And it was just really hard to, you know, accommodate those people and what they really needed, because there was a lot of people that needed some stuff, but anyone hearing this out there. You have support here at the university. We have a number of faculty, staff, opera administrators, even people in CSUN that do dearly care about what you're going through. And we will always try and connect you with the right resources. But usually the first ones we direct people towards is student organizations. Because student organizations, I mean, they're just like you, their students are undergrads, sometimes you'll have advisors and some graduate students that partake in some of the operations. But just in general, they're just like you, they share some similar experiences. And everyone's life is very, very unique. But there's some things that we can all find very relatable amongst one another. And even just kind of hearing you, Peter, in general, about some of the steps you've taken to really set yourself apart from other students, I find it very relatable, because I mean, I'm a first gen student, a lot of the times when I go home, and I talk to my parents about trying to, you know, develop as a professional, they don't understand it, they don't understand the specific steps that the university has provided us with, or at least how to get involved and why that is beneficial. I used to be very invested in economics club, as a president of economics club about a year ago. And my mom would always ask, like, do you get you get paid for it? And I tell her, like, No, I don't get paid for it. But I just put a lot of time into it. Because, I mean, you make a huge network, you build a lot of connections, there.
Unknown Speaker 26:19
It is, it's, it's a long run investment, you won't see the gain immediately. But you'll over time, if you do it at an earlier point in time, at least when you're a freshman or a sophomore, by the time you're a senior, your network will be huge, you'll be able to really understand all the opportunities that you really do have here. And it's just, it always comes down to putting the effort and the time in. But I'm always going to emphasize if you don't have the time, give yourself the break. Sometimes you need the break. But I mean, that's just generally with anyone I tell anyone that. And yeah, I mean, mental health is just, it's one of those things we always kind of have to mention with everyone in their professional lives. But we talked with a number of employers, we talked to the number of faculty staff, they are all understanding of what is going on. And they know that a priority for students is not always academics, it's not always getting the a on the test or making sure they're getting 100% On every assignment. It's always coming down to what is going to get us to where we want to be. And I think you've done a fantastic job in doing that. And I think you have a really bright future ahead of you. And I would always encourage you mentor those that do need it. If you see someone within your organization that needs help, you know, be by their side, reach out. And I think you would definitely set a very good standard and being the role model that the campus needs. Thank you. Absolutely. But we do have two minutes left for today's segment. So Peter, if you want you can always shout out your social media or you can shout out the student organizations are part of or anyone in particular. So now would be the time to do so if you'd like.
Unknown Speaker 28:05
Sure. Yeah, I mean, I'd like to give a special shout out to rebels at UNLV. Rebels out UNLV on Instagram. Fantastic organization, of course a little bit biased, but I think it's it's worth checking out if you do have the opportunity to do so there's a lot of really cool, really smart people, they're ultimately trying to change this community for the better. So
Unknown Speaker 28:33
that's awesome. I mean, just I know we try not to compete with Reno to try and work as a team. But I mean, Reno if you guys want to honestly establish an organization that is sending a satellite up to space, you know, you'll feel free to do so. We can always put you in contact with rebels sat and they can give you some pointers. They might not give you every single detail. But you know, I just love the University here at UNLV. We are doing a lot. We have over 400 student organizations and every single time there's a new organization that comes up and like wow, it's a good idea. But rebel sat I mean, they're fantastic. I know rebels had also received student funding for the organization. They are doing fantastic work and this is just the last informational piece but CSUN is actually hosting a RSL funding and scholarship workshop. It is going to be on October 28 from four to 6pm. The location is going to be in Student Union room 207. So if you're interested in receiving student funding for your organization, pass the message along the leadership or if you're just a member also pass the message along with leadership and if you're interested in scholarships or grants, I highly recommend you attend the workshop and ask any questions. And if you don't have any questions prepared, you can always just show up we'll have free food and drinks it will be provided to students it's free of charge. And we're always here to help And that's how we came across Peter. Peter has been very invested in the Las Vegas community in general and here on campus and we praise you for your work. And again, thank you so much for your time, Peter. Thanks for having me. Thank you all for listening. To find more details do visit www.unlv.edu/cs un
Unknown Speaker 30:22
and if you guys want to stay up to date with more events, go ahead and follow us at at UNLV CSUN.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai