By Richard Zagrzecki
Some people like to build model cars for a hobby. Ricardo Useche is making a real one.
Useche, a junior majoring in mechanical engineering at the University of Houston, is an active member of the Formula Society of Automotive Engineers at UH. The team of engineering students is designing and building a quarter-scale Formula-style race car.
“The goal of it is to go to competition and compete against other universities,” said Useche. “But we’re also getting valuable real-life experience related to engineering. I love it.”
The fall semester was spent designing the car, which will be assembled and tested in the spring. Competition takes places in the summer.
The Formula SAE chapter is just one of numerous endeavors that keeps Useche busy here at UH. Since September, he has also worked in the Office of Sustainability. As the office and team lead, he oversees a group of five other student workers, including two garden assistants and three outreach assistants.
In that role, his job duties vary. He acts as the intermediary between the student team and staff. He makes sure the student team is completing their job assignments and also handles communications between the office and outside organizations. He has been instrumental in reviving the monthly Office of Sustainability newsletter and making sure the office’s social media accounts stay active and updated.
He found out about the job just by chance.
“I just happened to be walking by the Office of Sustainability one day and saw a sign they put up telling students there was a job opening,” Useche said. “So I went online and looked up what the Office of Sustainability did.”
That’s when he saw a page listing all of the campus sustainability initiatives. One in particular caught his attention: the installation of the UH2O water bottle refilling stations by UH Facilities several years ago.
“I think that it what pulled me in and got me interested in applying for the job,” he said.
Useche was born and raised in Venezuela. While growing up, his parents would send him to Houston to live with a relative for a few months at a time and attend school here to learn English. It was during one of those visits that he went on a tour of UH and fell in love with it.
He now lives in Houston permanently with his parents and younger brother. During his freshman year at UH, he and a friend formed the Venezuelan Student Union, an active organization with more than 130 members. The group connects with the Venezuelan community here in Houston and has participated in political forums and been invited to political talks. They also have fun doing activities that expose Venezuelan students to the culture of the city of Houston.
He has also been active with the UH chapter of the Society of Hispanic Professionals and Engineers, as well as the International Students Organization. During the summer, he completed an internship with Sunnova, a solar energy company.
He anticipates graduating in December 2018, then entering the mechanical engineering field in some role. What specifically that will be is still to be determined.
“The advantage and disadvantage of mechanical engineering is that you can go into many areas and do a lot of different things,” he said. “I think I would love to go into maybe something like the automotive industry. I am very super passionate about computers, so if that was a possibility I would take it. But, we live in Houston, which is the center of the oil and gas industry, so I am not taking that off the list either.”