Alumni Spotlight: Mitchell Martin
“I heard my favorite piece of life advice in college from a professor... he was fond of saying that going with the flow can be a good short term endeavor, but unless you're trying to get to the ocean, you'll need to do some walking uphill.”
Mitchell Martin graduated from TEA in 2017 with just 5 other students, all of whom were true pioneers. They were our first! Our first high school students, our first students on the Martis Campus, our first students to get into college after embarking on our “non-traditional” path, and our first ALUMNI.
Throughout his time as a student and as an alum, Mitchell exemplifies TEA values and wholeheartedly embraced constructive adversity as a lifestyle. He never shied away from a difficult challenge. In fact, we think he might still be attempting to convert an old school bus into a livable RV. While in high school he traveled to places near and far, including Washington DC, Hawaii, Berlin and Prague. In 12th grade, his class traveled to Greece, specifically to study the Syrian Refugee Crisis. He narrated a short documentary film produced by his class about the challenges facing the refugees in order to raise funds to support the PRAKSIS aid organization. You can view their film HERE. Mitchell was never afraid to take big risks! For his senior intensive project, he traveled to Guatemala with Engineers Without Borders, where he helped translate for student groups on service trips and worked on evaluating the efficacy of previously-constructed water and sanitation projects built in underserved communities. This cemented a passion that he went on to pursue while in college at Northeastern University in Boston and into his current career. In a “Why TEA” video that TEA produced, Mitchell is quoted as saying, “I want to be a maker of change. I want to influence the world in a positive way.” There is no doubt in our minds that he is doing just that!!
We caught up with him recently and learned the following:
Mitchell is currently employed as an Environmental Engineer (read: person who designs drinking, storm, and wastewater collection, distribution, and treatment systems) at an engineering consulting company in Boston, MA. His undergraduate degree was in Environmental Engineering and he is currently licensed as an Engineer-in-Training, so along with his 2.5-ish years of experience in industry, he is about halfway towards his goal of getting his professional engineering license.
When asked about the impact that TEA had on his life, Mitchell shared the following:
At TEA, there is a big focus on providing students with agency over their education. An easy example is the senior intensives. During mine, I spent a few weeks in Guatemala working with an environmental engineering nonprofit to explore a career path I was interested in. I have to imagine that most schools would be hard-pressed to find an example of a more individually-tailored educational experience. Later, in college, I ran a student chapter of the same nonprofit, where I worked with approximately 30 other engineering students to design and build water systems in rural Panama.”
He shared these Words of Advice for current students.
“I heard my favorite piece of life advice in college from a professor of hydraulic and hydrologic modeling. He was fond of saying that going with the flow can be a good short term endeavor, but unless you’re trying to get to the ocean, you’ll need to do some walking uphill.”
We wish Mitchell continued success in his life and career and are truly honored to call him a TEA Alumni!
