Olbin Gil is the poster child for running with every opportunity that FIU throws his way. During the past three years, the mechanical engineering major revived a now-thriving automotive club on campus, accepted an invitation to an entrepreneurship competition that had him founding a viable business, participated in exclusive seminars on politics and economics led by visiting foreign dignitaries and attended a weeklong out-of-state retreat, paid for by the university, to debate the pros and cons of capitalism.
One thing leads to another
When Gil saw that the sustainable-engineering club he had joined as a freshman appeared on the verge of disbanding a year later when its president and most of the rest of the members graduated, he at first shunned the suggestion that he take over the flailing group. Prodded, however, he thought creatively about how to reverse its fortunes – the goal being an entry in the global engineering competition Shell Eco-marathon – and parlayed an invitation to a career fair in North Carolina into a fundraising trip. Not far enough along in his studies to interview for actual jobs, the then-sophomore made a pivot: “Instead of pitching me,” he says, “I pitched the club.”
Approaching the 50 or so companies recruiting talent, he made a plug for financial support and eventually collected thousands of dollars. He made up the needed balance with a fruitful appeal to the Student Government Association and soon had 50 students lined up to build an electric vehicle for a race in Indianapolis against universities from throughout the Americas.
Gil shares that everything from drumming up the money to completing and shipping the car in time cost him untold hours of sleep and keenly tested his fortitude. “It was very, very challenging,” he recalls. “It was a stretch for me.”
But pushing himself, he adds, paid off in newfound knowledge and a heightened ability to execute under pressure. “I went from not knowing anything to knowing a lot about a lot of different things.”
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