CMU student and Fruita Monument High School graduate Trinity Turner excelled in the CMU-CU Boulder engineering partnership and earned top academic honors
Trinity Turner, a senior at Colorado Mesa University, demonstrated remarkable dedication and talent when awarded the Academic Engagement Department Award with the Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering Department [based in Boulder, CO]. Turner is the first civil engineering student from CMU’s side of the program to receive a department award from the partnership program.
This award recognizes a student who has gone above and beyond in the classroom. Turner’s academic performance, accompanied by her leadership qualities, propelled her to be a top candidate for this award. Turner possesses clear communication skills with faculty and demonstrates a keen eye to address not only academic but also professional challenges. These challenges included struggling academically when it came to more niche, technical classes and communication gaps between her and professors. Juggling two jobs, a difficult major and social life proved to be strenuous but essential stepping stones to her success.
“Balancing school, two jobs and a social life was tough, but having a supportive group of classmates and approachable professors made a big difference when challenges came up,” Turner added.
CMU-CU Boulder Civil Engineering Instructor Ulises Techera, PhD, said, “She is very methodological in her approach to solving engineering problems and she is willing to go the extra mile to make sure that each solution is 100% correct.”
Turner is local and has contributed in a numerous ways to her community. Not only receiving this prestigious award, but Turner has also spent the last decade coaching youth and adults in basketball, football and softball. She also led youth camps at the Fruita Recreation Center as an athletic supervisor. She has done so while holding a respected position at a local civil engineering consulting firm.
“I’m a hard-working and detail-oriented person who enjoys taking on new challenges,” saidTurner, reflecting on her time at CMU.
This hard work will not stop after college. Turner will graduate in May, where she will embark further into her current internship and work full-time at River City Consultants Inc. The approaching civil engineering graduate will begin her career as a design engineer on the Western Slope. Her extensive community involvement also contributed to her decision to stay local in Grand Junction.
Colorado Mesa University’s partnership with the University of Colorado Boulder creates opportunities for students in civil, electrical and computer and mechanical engineering on CMU’s campus. This partnership allows for hands-on learning and small class sizes.