Welcoming a Clark Scholar.  First-year AE student Vincent Bell attended Archer High School, where he excelled in mathematics and graduated in the top five percent of his class. At Tech, he was selected for a Clark Scholarship which will cover his tuition, fees, room, and board. It will also open him up to a variety of extracurricular engagement opportunities. Welcome to Tech, Vincent.

The Aerospace Engineering School's newest Clark Scholar, Vincent Bell, refuses to take sides in a debate that often divides engineers of a certain ilk.

"I like Star Wars because it's got The Force, but I also like Star Trek," says the good-natured Lawrenceville native, 18. "They both have always made aerospace seem interesting, exciting. And that drew me to field when I was younger."

The movie that most captures his dreams these days is Hidden Figures.

"In Hidden Figures you see these strong African American women working at NASA to achieve their goals during Jim Crow. You can't help but be inspired," he said. "It's also great because you get to see people working to achieve space flight."

That sounds an awful lot like what Bell wants to do, and he's got a plan to do it. At Tech, he will focus on strengthening and building upon his natural talents in mathematics and the sciences.

"Growing up, I realized that I picked up math pretty quickly, easily, and that I could even teach others," he said. "My first job was as a tutor at Mathnasium. I've just tried to follow where my strengths lead me."

Since coming to Tech in August, Bell has picked up new tutoring jobs and has also gotten involved with Lambda Delta Rho, the freshman leadership component of the Georgia Tech Society of Black Engineers. His long term goals might include a doctorate, he says, but they will definitely include a career in spacecraft design. The courses he chose to take for his first semester are a testimony to how serious he is about attaining that goal: Computer Science 1371, Applied Physiology 1040, Multivariant Calculus 2551, and English 1102.

"Next semester, I might take chemistry, but I might put it off just to make sure I can do well," he said. "I want to keep my grades up."

While many of his classmates are new to the world of virtual learning, Bell says it harkens back to his childhood when he used distance learning tools as a part of his home-schooling curriculum.

"As a kid, I was used to getting material to learn on my own and then sending it to a tutor to be checked," he said. "That's made this semester a little easier, I guess."

We hope to see you in classes soon, Vincent!