Angelica Lopez

Engineering Futures Scholar

Angelica Lopez, a first-generation biomedical engineering student from Phoenix, Arizona, chose this major because she likes math and the extensive amount of different opportunities the biomedical engineering field has to offer. 

Lopez said she wanted to be in the medical field but had no interest in being a nurse or doctor, so going into biomedical engineering was “the best of both worlds.”

“I’m not exactly sure how I plan to help people, but I feel like through biomedical engineering I’ll be able to help people by getting them medical devices they might not have in a certain country or just by impacting them in a small way,” Lopez said. 

Lopez is an Engineering Futures first-year scholar attending the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering and is a member of the Society of Women Engineers and Biomedical Engineering Society.

She decided to enroll at Arizona State University even though she had the opportunity to play Basketball out-of-state. She chose ASU because she liked all the resources, the environment, and the Ira A. Fulton Schools of engineering school stood out to her.

During the transition from high school to college, she said that time management was the biggest obstacle following making friends. 

Being a first-generation student made the transition to school harder as well because she didn’t have anyone to ask for help at home who had gone through this same experience and wasn’t sure who to look to for help sometimes.

“Growing up I’ve always tried to figure out things on my own, and I never really asked for help,” Lopez said. “I guess I would have to spend a lot more time on homework than other students would because they had their parents, and they knew how to do this stuff.” 

She advises incoming freshmen to not be afraid to reach out for help and to try to learn time-management skills before coming to college to have the best chance of success. 

By Laura Stack, Science and Technology Writer, Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering
February 20, 2020