Time to Achieve Her Goals:
Sneha Gudala (’25 BSCHE)
on Receiving
the Brookshire Scholarship
Sneha Gudala (’25 BSCHE) has set her sights high, and there is no indication that anything will stop her. Receiving the William A. Brookshire Scholarship from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the Cullen College of Engineering has made her goals more attainable.
“The Brookshire Scholarship gave me time to achieve my goals. The financial cushion eased my mental burden and allowed me to broaden my horizons further. Now, instead of focusing exclusively on my studies, I have the time to help others.”
Helping others is an understatement. Gudala serves as a calculus workshop tutor in the Scholar Enrichment Program at UH, chairs the outreach committee for Omega Chi Epsilon, the chemical engineering honor society, and is a past president and current member of the UH chapter of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). As a freshman, Gudala also took advantage of the mentoring opportunities available through Learning Advancements for Undergraduate Cougars of Houston. By her junior year, she had become a mentor herself. “My mother is a teacher, and watching her help others has led me to want to do the same.”
Now in her senior year at UH, Gudala is in the midst of her second summer internship at Phillips 66 Company in Houston. Her experience there has shown her how classroom learning is adapted to the workplace.
“I am working on a pipeline maintenance project,” she said. “I can see how my studies of science and the related laws led me to gaining a lot of knowledge about the pipeline world. Specifically, I’ve learned to understand the procedure regarding the maintenance of older pipelines and how current research impacts the way we change those procedures.”
“The most rewarding part of this project was using my Excel skills to increase the efficiency by VBA coding. Initially, I sorted through 2,500 segments manually, which took about two weeks. However, by the end of the project, I coded the process so I could sort through 2,500 segments in just a few seconds. This increased the time and money saved for the company.”
Gudala hopes to explore different options during her internship to gain a better understanding of the technical and real-world applications of her degree. “Trying out different engineering roles will allow me to test myself and see what suits me better and learn about different parts of the industry,” she said. “I would love to keep working at Phillips. They have really been very welcoming to me, and I know it would help me grow in a lot of areas. My co-workers are mentoring me all the time. The future looks very promising.”
Gudala with her family
Gudala with her family
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