Shawn De Jesus

Engineering Futures Scholar

Shawn De Jesus, a computer science student with a focus in software engineering at the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering said he was inspired to pursue engineering in college because he’s always liked to solve problems and liked math and science from an early age.

De Jesus attends Software Developers Association (SoDA) meetings during the school year and is a part of Arizona State Universities break dancing club, Dynamic Movement, which is a community of students who practice and attend competitions for tricking, a sport that combines elements of gymnastics with martial arts involving kicks, flips and dancing. 

“I was always intrigued by the different movements someone could do with their body,” De Jesus said. “They could do crazy spins while doing a backflip in these intricate ways that are different from gymnastics.”

De Jesus has been learning to trick for six years and Tae Kwon Do for 11 years. He was drawn to tricking for the acrobatic elements and used it as an outlet to exercise when he was younger, but he said it quickly became one of his passions because of how supportive the community is. 

“No matter what stage [skill level] you are in, everyone loves looking out for everyone else.”

Despite his belief that college would be difficult to transition to, he said that he was surprised to find out his classes weren’t as demanding as he’d expected. His free time between classes during the day and being able to schedule classes two days out of the week helped him a lot. 

He said that he’s had to teach himself how to navigate the school system in the United States since his parents attended school and graduated from college in the Philippines. 

The biggest obstacles he had to overcome were due dates and learning to commit time to himself but learned to develop the habit of writing down all due dates in case a professor doesn’t send out a reminder for an assignment. 

Some advice he has for incoming freshmen is to find what you’re most passionate about early on and to do a lot to research about what you’re most interested to study. 

“It just makes the process when it comes to thinking about your future much easier,” De Jesus said. 

By Laura Stack, Science and Technology Writer, Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering
August 4, 2020