Everything you build is for the community.
As a kid Jaden Bradley enjoyed watching HGTV to see homes being designed and built. This led him to an interest in architecture, until his high school advisor suggested he combine his interest in design with his strong technical skills by pursuing civil engineering. To this day Jaden appreciates how “Civil engineering is a good mix of technical skills with abstract thinking and problem solving,” as he says. Jaden started as a freshman in CEE at UMD in Fall 2023. He is now a senior specializing in the Geotechnical/ Structures track.
Jaden’s favorite things about civil engineering are the broad scope of what it covers, and the service it provides to communities. “What kept me in CEE was giving back to the community,” he says. “Everything you build is for the community.”
Jaden is very involved in extracurriculars, many of them within the Clark School. He is the Secretary of the Chi Epsilon Honor Society, a member of ASCE and the Black Engineering Society, and has served as a Clark Ambassador for two years. He is also a peer assistant for Engineering Career Services, where he helps with resumes and career fair preparation. He is also on a club soccer team, and since he is minoring in Spanish, he also takes part in a language house chat group regularly. He says his ability to balance academics and extracurriculars comes from learning to plan for the future, preparing for assignments and other commitments well in advance.
One of Jaden’s favorite opportunities in CEE was being part of the Alumni Cup team in Spring 2026. Through his role on the team, he gained connections in the department and got a lot of advice from his senior teammates about classes and career options. Another of his favorite experiences was studying abroad in Italy for Dr. Goulias’s ‘Sustainability, Thermal Comfort, and Safety’ class during last spring break, in which he learned about urban heat islands in Turin.
Jaden has also had summer internships every year of college. After his freshman year, he was a field engineer for OHLA USA. After that, he wanted to do something more design-oriented. The President of UMD’s Black Engineers Society chapter had interned for STV, an architectural services company, and she introduced him to the company’s representatives at the career fair. He applied and got a position as a rail design intern in New York the following summer, working on the Hudson tunnel project. This past summer, he worked for STV again as a bridge design intern.
Jaden plans to graduate in Spring 2027. He hopes to take the F.E. before graduation, and then work in the design realm in transportation engineering. He now has the skills to apply his life-long love of design to projects that serve his community.
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