Alumni Spotlight: Weston Schlack

A member of the Gamma class, Weston was an Aerospace Engineering major who graduated in 2017. Weston remembers fondly his years at WPI, though they weren’t easy (especially with the graduate classes in his junior year). Despite those tough classes, he has fond memories of school, especially of Beta Theta Pi and the support group it provided, as well as the brothers who helped him stay motivated and achieve his goals. One of his fondest Beta memories was going to the cinema to see the movie Everest with some brothers, and afterwards conversing about the movie in the car. However, they were so invested in the conversation they did not realize they were just blindly following a truck in front of them, and ended up getting lost! Luckily, Weston and Co. found their way home, and lived to see other movies.

Weston enjoyed hiking before moving down to Florida, and is currently looking for an alternative, taking up kayaking in the meantime. This is especially fun, as he goes kayaking in spots where there is bioluminescence at night, lighting up the water surrounding him. Lastly, Weston also enjoys tuning up and fixing cars in his free time.

Weston now works as a launch engineer at SpaceX, more specifically working with the fluids team at the launch site and being responsible for the propellant loading of the Dragon and supporting launch equipment on the ground. He says it was really rewarding to see his work pay off, as it had been a long journey to that point, with him and his coworkers investing much time and effort into making the launch as smooth as possible. Although he had only worked at SpaceX for one and a half years at that point, he knew many people who had worked on it for much longer, which added to the anticipation (he was shaking when the rocket took off). It was an “awesome experience”, and Weston cites this extreme satisfaction, as well as his diverse group of coworkers, as part of the reason he enjoys working at SpaceX so much. Everyone is focused on the mission at hand, and everyone knew they had a responsibility to carry. Thus, owning up to mistakes and staying humble were essential for a productive work environment.

SpaceX Dragon 1 Program

SpaceX is Weston’s second job out of school, with the first being at a startup focusing on launching rockets from the bottoms of jets. While he enjoyed his first job, he knew it was not his passion. Since the job market was so competitive, he knew it would be hard to land his dream job straight out of school, and made sure to prepare so that his second job would be the one.

Weston did this through hard work, perseverance, and determination. His advice to all Betas is to “keep going, even if you don’t land your dream job straight away, even if you are the intern getting coffee’s for everyone, with persevere and some luck you will land the job of your dreams.” For seniors, he advises making sure you take advantage of the resources available to you. “Go to the CDC, look online for job boards, and even if nobody calls you back the first 10, 100 times, keep going.” In fact, he found and landed his first job the first week school was out, so it goes to show it’s never too late.

In the future, Weston is excited to see where his career path takes him and hopes to stay involved with the Dragon missions.

Alumni Involvement News

Hello alumni brothers!

I hope you are all doing well and have been able to adjust effectively to these strange times. As you know, no external visitors will be allowed in the house or on campus. However, we would like to continue organizing alumni events this upcoming semester, and are determined to maintain close communication with you.

I would also like to announce that we have a SharePoint for photo-sharing of chapter activities; a wiki page we use for general fraternity knowledge, advice, and documentation; and a Beta Alumni Map. Please feel free to contribute to any of these sources or look around and see what we're up to! If you need access to any of those platforms, please contact me at communications@betawpi.org.

Finally, I would like to personally thank all of our donors for their generous donations! This is only an intermediate thank you, as we will have more official ones heading your way. Every bit helps so much for a small chapter like ours, especially going though rough times like these.

I wish you and your families well, and wish you all the best. We are determined to make this year better than the last, despite the challenges we face.

Yours in __kai__,

Taylor Cox #132.