In this alumni spotlight, we have interviewed Feliciano Cortes from Stanford University.
What are the schools that you have applied to?
I’m from California, so I applied to multiple UC’s, Cal-States, and three private schools. UC’s: UCLA, UC Berkeley, UC Santa Barbara, UC San Diego
Cal-States: Cal-Poly Pomona, Cal-Poly San Luis Obispo
Privates: Stanford, Princeton, Yale Accepted to all
What is your major?
Major: Electrical Engineering
Who inspired you to your higher education? Do you have a mentor?
Mentorship is something that I’ve unfortunately lacked throughout my academic career. It’s something that I would’ve greatly benefitted from coming into college as it was hard navigating what I wanted to do here as a first-gen student. I owe a great deal of my motivation in life and academics to the close friendships I hold. Back in high school, I had a close friend group in which we helped push each other to excel academically, which helped me become a good candidate for these schools.
If you were to apply for college once again, what would you have done differently?
If I were to apply again, I would definitely do much more research on what it is I want to do. I still believe that 18 is such a young age to know what you want to do, but it’s important to know what kind life you want to have/career you want to be in, and that should guide your college-app process. This means finding adults who can advise you on college in general! I honestly was so naive coming in, but I’m lucky it worked out. Ultimately, I’m happy with how it turned out because I know that personally, I thrive when I’m with friends, and I was fortunate enough to have a friend from high school here at Stanford before me. I found my own way of course, but just knowing I had someone made me feel all the more at peace.
Are you happy with your major and what are you planning on doing?
I don’t feel particularly passionate about my major… but that’s okay! Sometimes I think I should have just done CS, but I learned about the same stuff as I would’ve with a CS degree. Again, it comes down to what you’re looking for. I realized I don’t want to stick around the world of academia/research, so doing a degree in EE has been my way of making sure I can get a job once I’m done. My plans after graduation: get a job. Hopefully here in the bay area doing some kind of hardware stuff. I’m also happy with software roles, tech is just so big that you just gotta start somewhere, and then you’ll know where you wanna go.
Have you considered applying to an Ivy League school? Why and why not?
I applied to two Ivy’s back in high school, and I’d say it was about the same process as applying to Stanford. The most stressful part was just getting the whole common app done for each school as their questions vary from school-to-school. Would I do it again? For grad school… maybe. If I even want to do grad school that is. The answer is 100% yes if after working for sometime, I find something I want to become more specialized in. The best thing you can do is give yourself options.