EVERETT — James Ramirez, 15, a sophomore at Cascade High School, has earned seven Microsoft certifications, including expert-level certifications for Word, Excel, Access and PowerPoint. Ramirez, who grew up in Florida, aspires to work for Boeing.
Question: What got you interested in taking the tests to get these certifications?
Answer: I took a class. Originally I thought the class was going to be going over basic computer applications. I didn’t know it would cover the certifications. The first time I took the certification test I passed. I took the tests twice, and got the expert-level certifications the second time.
Q: Why did you do that?
A: My teacher pressured me to do it, but that’s not the main reason. I knew gaining all the certifications would look good on my resume and improve my chances with college. My teachers were surprised because I’m aiming to be an aerospace engineer and work for Boeing. It’ll be helpful there too.
Q: What was your first experience with technology?
A: Back when I lived in Florida I had one of the first GameBoys. It was just a block, a pixelated screen and it had Mario on it. Then my second exposure was a GameBoy Advance, with more games. Third was a PC, my parents’ home PC.
Q: Did your parents spark your interest in technology?
A: In Florida, there’s not really much else there. It’s all flat. My parents worked at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. All the parks were in my back yard and I could go to all of them. They said, “James, we want to move to Washington,” and I said, “No, I’m happy here.” But then they said there were planes up there, Boeing and the Museum of Flight.
Q: Did you or your younger brother ever develop an affinity for animals?
A: Not too much. My brother did at one point in time, but now it’s all video games.
Q: Even then you wanted to work on planes?
A: I used to make paper airplanes all the time. When I saw smaller I used to be fascinated with flight, and I don’t know what triggered it because my parents never worked for airports or on planes. But my neighbors had money and every once in a while a helicopter would land in their front yard. I’d keep staring at it until it disappeared.
Q: Tell me about your experience on the school robotics team.
A: I’ve been building robots for about five years. I’ve been in FIRST, in the First Tech Challenge and First Robotics Challenge leagues. Last year for FTC we advanced to state. We stopped at state because it seemed the robot was fighting against us. It just kept breaking down. We build pretty big robots. Not many people in the world get to build robots, but we do.
Q: Have you always wanted to work for Boeing?
A: It’s been a dream, probably for six years. All the way back in the third grade, when the teacher gives you that worksheet: What do you want to be when you grow up? Back then it was more about working on planes. Now, I want to design the aircraft. I’ve been drawing up concept aircraft ever since then. I’m actually working on one right now.
Q: What kind of aircraft?
A: Some are like supersonic concepts, military, commercial, private. Just a lot of aircraft that I think have interesting designs that might one day fly.
Q: Are you using Computer-Aided Design software?
A: In robotics I’ve learned to do basic CAD, but I haven’t been using it because they just upgraded. Fortunately it looks like a lot of Microsoft programs, so it’ll be much easier for me to learn.
Q: What do you do outside of classes?
A: I’m on the cross-country team, the track team, Robotics and Boy Scouts. And all these take up a lot of time. I used to do basketball but it was just taking up too much time. I have to skip cross-country two days a week to go to robotics. Sometimes for FRC we stay until 9 p.m. working on the robot. We sometimes find ourselves eating dinner at robotics.
Q: What do your parents think of your technology focus?
A: My dad isn’t really interested in tech as such, but they’re definitely proud of me for getting the certifications. My mom is more into tech. She has her phone. I’m probably the technology master in the family. If there’s something that needs to be done on the computer, I probably will do it.
Chris Winters: 425-374-4165; cwinters@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @Chris_At_Herald.
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