{"id":3472,"date":"2018-10-08T10:59:54","date_gmt":"2018-10-08T10:59:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/?p=3472"},"modified":"2019-04-24T07:35:37","modified_gmt":"2019-04-24T13:35:37","slug":"tstc-alumnus-moves-on-to-start-welding-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/?p=3472","title":{"rendered":"TSTC Alumnus Moves On to Start Welding Career"},"content":{"rendered":"

(SWEETWATER) \u2013 One of Texas State Technical College\u2019s recent alumni from the Welding Technology program has left a high mark for future students to attain.<\/span><\/p>\n

Luis Rueda, 20, of Colorado City took dual credit classes while a student at Colorado High School and received an Associate of Applied Science degree in Welding Technology in August. He also earned two other graduating honors.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLuis has continually proven that he is willing to do whatever it takes to make a great hand,\u201d said Taylor Elston, a TSTC Welding Technology instructor.<\/span><\/p>\n

Elston awarded Rueda the Outstanding Graduate Award, a recognition putting him at the top of his Welding Technology classes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe is constantly asking knowledgeable questions, diligently checking his work, and he focuses hard on perfecting his craft with great efficiency,\u201d Elston said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rueda also earned the Provost Award from TSTC in West Texas Provost Rick Denbow. Denbow chooses one student each semester to receive the award from those who have received the Outstanding Graduate Award in their program.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI am so proud of Luis,\u201d said Elston. \u201cI\u2019m glad he got the Provost Award too. He worked hard to earn it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Elston, Rueda was a consistent leader in the classroom.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLuis never stops working,\u201d said Elston. \u201cHe can work circles around everyone else and still always seems to be the happiest and the least tired.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In between welding sessions, Rueda found time to enjoy himself and make friends on campus.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c(My favorite memory is) the day we had at the cook-off at the lake,\u201d said Rueda. \u201cIt was pretty fun.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Rueda has always shown promise.<\/span><\/p>\n

He has been a student at TSTC in Sweetwater since 2015, when he enrolled as a Welding Technology dual credit student through Colorado High School. He first entered Elston\u2019s class as a timid junior but quickly began to show signs of a talented craftsman.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHis junior year he mostly kept to himself,\u201d said Elston. \u201cHowever, as a senior he was in a fabrication course during the same hours they were juniors in an intro welding course. After he had all his own assignments in, he would hang out with the younger guys and watch them weld and give them pointers.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Rueda decided to go into the dual credit program after his brother told him how fun and interesting welding was.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a great opportunity that not all schools offer you,\u201d said Rueda. \u201cI just thought it was a great opportunity that my school was offering and that it was gonna help me in my future since I decided that I wanted to be a welder.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

After graduating high school in 2017, Rueda continued his education at TSTC with 15 college credit hours on his transcript, saving him time and money. Rueda was already in the know about \u00a0how college worked and what his instructors expected of him, putting him ahead of the game from his first semester as a college student.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI already knew how to weld by the time I graduated high school, so I didn\u2019t have to worry about that and already knew my instructors well and how they worked,\u201d Rueda said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since Rueda\u2019s graduation in August, he has recently been hired to build pressure vessels at Tri-Point LLC in Midland.<\/span><\/p>\n

For more information on Texas State Technical College, go to www.tstc.edu<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"TSTC<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(SWEETWATER) \u2013 One of Texas State Technical College\u2019s recent alumni from the Welding Technology program has left a high mark for future students to attain. Luis Rueda, 20, of Colorado City took dual credit classes while a student at Colorado High School and received an Associate of Applied Science degree in Welding Technology in August. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sweetwater"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3472"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4240,"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3472\/revisions\/4240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}