ECE Student Spotlight: Shivam Tickoo
Shivam Tickoo, a fourth-year Buckeye undergraduate from Grand Rapids, Michigan, said it was about that age he knew engineering and business were for him.
Tickoo is now pursuing an Electrical and Computer Engineering degree with a minor in Business, in the hopes of combining his technical knowledge and leadership skills after graduation.
The undergrad initially began his venture into engineering by joining the FIRST robotics team in high school, later becoming club President. Once at Ohio State, Tickoo had the opportunity to give back by mentoring students just like him at the Metro Tech High School in Columbus. His prior experience and guidance helped lead the team toward winning the Engineering Inspiration Award.
When Tickoo’s not mentoring aspiring engineers, he spends his time interning and conducting research with various organizations.
He took some time out of his busy summer schedule to describe his academic interests and future at Ohio State for other ECE students.
Why did you pick ECE, specifically?
I always knew I wanted to be an engineer. My mom found a laminated card from the fourth grade that read: "Shivam hopes to be an engineer one day." Along with my dad’s influence, I genuinely find the work interesting. ECE is the foundation of everything. I did a lot of mechanical engineering on the FIRST robotics team and found the electrical stuff cool, but didn’t understand it at first. Everything is useless without electrical engineering and engineering in general is useful for anything you want to do.
What led you to studying business alongside your major in ECE?
Well, I want to do an MBA in the future, so this is my head start. Having a general business background is vital – an engineer needs to know how much his or her ideas are worth. I’ll also learn valuable skills that’ll open up doors to leadership positions in companies.
What type of research opportunities have you taken advantage of at Ohio State and beyond?
My first exposure to university-level research was working with the Scarlet and GRAY lasers freshman year. After that, I completed an intense underwater laser research internship as a directed energy scholar at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and co-authored a paper on optical parametric amplification at the Femto-Solid Laboratory on campus. This summer, I’m exploring my interests in business at New Avon, LLC, as a supply chain intern.
What are your plans after undergrad? What about grad school?
I would love to work for great companies like Apple, Tesla, Alphabet, etc. After working in industry, I would pursue an MBA and go into leadership roles.
Article by Student PR Writer, Ravleen Kuar
