Meet Pedro Rodriguez, the president of SHPE-UPRM chapter, you’ve probably seen him around campus maybe giving a meeting, on a sale, recruiting members or simply in a class. He is in charge of the biggest organizations here at UPRM with over 500 members and 22 sponsors! He took sometime out of his busy busy schedule to give us an insight on his life and talk to us about SHPE. Keep reading you won’t regret it, maybe next time you see him around campus you will ask on how to join SHPE. And because one of his dreams consist in joining politics you may be talking to our future governor.
Campus Celebrity: Pedro Daniel Rodriguez
Year: Third Year
Department: Mechanical Engineering
Hometown: Caguas
HCUPRM: Favorite place at UPRM?
PDR: SHPE’s office II-221. I’m ALWAYS there.
HCUPRM: Favorite pastime?
PDR: Does SHPE count as a pastime? I spend a lot of time with the association but I love doing it. But in my free time I play video games, chess- I was actuality the president of that association last year here at UPRM, I also like soccer, basketball and like every college student I like to go out at night, call it networking.
HCUPRM: Places you would like to visit?
PDR: Where don’t I want to travel? Venice, Egypt and all Europe. And I’m planning on going to Spain for the student exchange program from January to May 2015.
HCUPRM: Internships you’ve participated in?
PDR: I work twice with Procter and Gamble (P&G) in Ohio with their division of Pampers, who would have though I would work with pampers? From August to December of 2014 I will be working with Johnson and Johnson. I’m currently working to get an internship with Accenture.
HCUPRM: Goals after graduation?
PDR: I have two plans. First one is to go work at a company while I work on getting my masters in business administration (MBA) and go for the PhD. My plan B is go study law and go build my way up in politics.
Do you know what SHPE is? Lets find out!
HCUPRM: What is SHPE?
PDR: SHPE stands for Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers. It was founded in 1974 in Los Angeles, because of the shortage of Hispanics in the industry. The goal was to serve as motivation to the rest of the Hispanic community to keep studding and working hard to become leaders of the industry. It started out for engineering only, but that has changed and it currently covers what is called STEM (science, technology, engineering and math). Currently it has the same focus, to develop Hispanic students as leaders in the industry but we have 5 main elements.
Those are
1. Leadership development: through different activities like workshops, and teamwork
2. Professionalism: How to shake a hand, what to dress, how to talk with recruiters, how to give a good interview, resume and speech.
3. Academic development: Here in our classes they teach us theory but in SHPE we will give you the learning experience that they don’t teach you in class.
4. Networking: social skills, learning to communicate your ideas and talk with all kinds of people, since know a days its very important to have connections.
5. Community service: Because we want to give back to the community that has help us so much.
At the end of the day, we are a family. My college experience would have been totally different without SHPE. If you need help, a book, information on a professor there is always someone to call.
HCUPRM: Why did you choose to become president of SHPE?
PDR: Since high school I’ve been involved with SHPE thanks to SHPE JR. I was president back in Caguas. Therefor I knew SHPE’s goal, but here in UPRM it was a bid deal, therefor it needed more organization and seriousness. I basically fell in love with the organization and wanted to be a part of it. Thanks to my mentors, that saw a great potential in me and help me develop as a leader I’m now running the organization with my team.
HCUPRM: Some of the changes you’ve done?
PDR: We work very close to recruiters and different companies; the people that come to our organization know the benefits of working with us. The problem was that sometime they left behind SHPE’s main goal, to develop as a leader and grow as an organization. And that was one of the main problems that I wanted to change and by working hard we changed it. Also all the members have the chance to vote in the decision making. My team and I also created a partnership program with different associations were we help them with our strong features and we receive the benefits of their strong features to.
HCUPRM: How do you keep the balance between president and student?
PDR: I love SHPE and it is very important to me, if it wasn’t important I would probably fail sometimes. But to achieve the a great balance between the books and SHPE has to do organization and confidence in my team. I need my team because I’m not the entire organization I’m just a member and guide.