{"id":14418,"date":"2023-05-18T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-05-18T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/?p=14418"},"modified":"2023-06-26T14:48:22","modified_gmt":"2023-06-26T18:48:22","slug":"shooting-for-the-stars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/shooting-for-the-stars\/","title":{"rendered":"Shooting for the stars<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"Smiling
Senior engineering major Jay Easter.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Jay Easter<\/strong> would be the first to tell you that he wasn\u2019t your typical child growing up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How many middle school children would often stock up on astrophysics books and read the works of Neil DeGrasse Tyson?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That passion for science was something that helped him connect with his mom, who taught elementary school science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was a way to express myself without talking to other people, I could see math and numbers and I could feel comfortable,\u201d he said. \u201cThe idea of space, the idea that there are so much beyond the four walls of my bedroom \u2026 it felt like the possibilities were endless.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another interest of Easter\u2019s is poetry, something he used as a means to express himself and something he continued when he attended the University of Maryland Eastern Shore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Easter\u2019s path to UMES is a story he loves to tell. After tailoring his academics and co-curriculars to make himself desirable to places like Stanford and other Ivy League schools, Easter was devastated when he received rejections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What helped Easter, a Severn resident by way of Nashville and Chicago, find resiliency was the help of his family \u2013 his fraternal twin sister Kay<\/strong>, who planned to attend UMES as a criminal justice major, and his mother who helped steer Jay to Princess Anne.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Smiling
L to R: UMES senior Jay Easter with his twin sister Kay Easter, also a senior at UMES. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cI can\u2019t have imagined going to UMES without Kay,\u201d he said. \u201cThey are one of the reasons I\u2019m here today and I feel grateful to them for that. To be able to have this journey with them and to grow alongside them is more than I could\u2019ve ever asked.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also said a discussion with one of the members of the admissions team, Anshay Tull<\/strong>, made him realize whatever disappointments he saw as a setback could be viewed as opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c(I learned) you never miss things that were meant for you. You may miss things that you thought were meant for you, but really can\u2019t see what\u2019s going on behind the scenes you can\u2019t see what\u2019s going on in the shadows,\u201d he said. \u201cIn the four years that I have been here that feeling has been exemplified.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his four years at UMES, Jay, a mechanical engineering major, has been heavily involved in a number of activities, including being a member of the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation, the Richard A. Henson Honors Program, the Thunderin\u2019 Hawks Pep Band, the National Society of Black Engineers, leadership roles in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and as a teaching assistant for introductory engineering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Easter said the reason he turned his focus towards engineering and away from astrophysics was the result of discovering that it was less of a career goal and more of a hobby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to the change in interests was an increased focus on becoming more social.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLooking back at my time in high school I wasn\u2019t very focused on creating relationships or understanding the importance of having interpersonal skills,\u201d he said. \u201cI realized I didn\u2019t want my college experience to be that way. I didn\u2019t want college to be a process where I was on autopilot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Easter\u2019s future plans include attending the University of Maryland to receive his Ph.D. In the Materials Science and Engineering program and working with Dr. Eric Wachsman<\/strong> on his research in battery materials and battery systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Easter, who also wants to become an entrepreneur by creating a company focusing on green technology, said the best piece of advice he can give to fellow students is to be proactive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTake the initiative and don\u2019t discount UMES,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s so much talent here, so much potential and you just have to find people who really see it and as a student, you have to take the initiative.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jay Easter would be the first to tell you that he wasn\u2019t your typical child growing up. How many middle school children would often stock up on astrophysics books and read the works of Neil DeGrasse Tyson? That passion for science was something that helped him connect with his mom, who taught elementary school science….Read more Shooting for the stars<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1559,"featured_media":14419,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-14418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1559"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14418"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=14418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}