UNM Hispanic students are doing their part to make the University's engineering and science programs shine at the national level.
Through dedicated classroom work and intense organizational participation - at both the student and professional levels - students are catching the attention of top businesses and their checkbooks.
More than $19,000 in scholarships and prizes has been awarded to members of one student organization at two conferences during the past three weeks.
Senior Benito Martinez, president of UNM's Hispanic Engineering and Student Organization, also called HESO, is one of those scholarship recipients.
He was one of only a handful of recipients nationwide to receive the $3,000 Padrino Scholarship this year. It was awarded last week at the Society of Mexican-American Engineers and Scientists' symposium in Phoenix, Ariz.
"It's at these conferences that you get internship opportunities," Martinez said.
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At that same conference, two HESO members, Julie Rendon and Carlos Segura, won awards of $1,000 and $1,100, respectively, for technical paper presentations, Martinez said. HESO member Erica Vasquez won a $2,000 laptop computer at the conference.
The UNM chapter of HESO was founded in 1975 and is made up of members of both the Society of Mexican-American Engineers and Scientists and the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers - two national organizations that include student and professional chapters.
Martinez said his work in HESO helps give him opportunities for scholarships and to attend conferences where he can meet like-minded people from across the nation.
He has taken part in two internships: One with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and another with General Motors Corp.
Late last month junior Pedro Ramos and senior Miguel Casias, both majoring in mechanical engineering, received $5,000 scholarships at the Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Corporation conference in Austin, Texas.
Only 15 students from across the nation received the scholarship. UNM was the only university to have two scholarship recipients. Casias received the same scholarship last year, Ramos said.
Ramos, who is also an ASUNM senator, said the success HESO members had at both conferences doesn't only benefit award recipients.
"It especially says a lot about UNM," he said. "Not only about the University, but also students and Latinos."
Martinez said UNM's HESO chapter is one of the most productive in the nation. This year, the University helped pay for 30 students to go to the Austin conference.
He said many entities at UNM, such as Minority Programs, have helped HESO achieve many of its goals, including helping to prepare science and engineering students for the professional world.
"In physics and calculus, they don't teach you interviewing," Martinez said. "This is something you don't get in the classroom."
The individual and group work HESO and its members have put in is paying off in ways other than scholarships.
On Oct. 9, representatives from the FBI were on campus to recruit HESO members. On Nov. 17, officials from the U.S. Department of Agriculture will be on campus to network with HESO members.
