Scholarship Spotlight January 2022

Friday, Jan 21, 2022

Scholarship Spotlight | Amy Wu

Amy Wu

Amy is in her final year of Integrated Engineering with a major study in Mechanical Engineering and a minor in Electrical Engineering at the University of British Columbia.  Since January 2021, she has been working at Integral Group as an Engineering Intern. Amy was a project leader of the "Bubble Helmet" product line at COSMIC Medical. She aspires to engineer high-performance building designs for a sustainable future. In her spare time, Amy enjoys rock climbing and painting.

Amy, thank you for being our Scholarship Spotlight and congratulations on being selected as one of the recipients of the 2021-2022 CREW Network Foundation Scholarship! Can you please share your career aspirations upon graduating from UBC?

Post-graduation, I hope to integrate business and engineering into my role. I enjoy talking to people and putting projects together. I want a career that will enable me to make a large, positive impact on people and the planet.  

How did you initially become involved in commercial real estate? 

My prior experience includes biomedical research and engineering, and I was looking to try a new industry in a consulting role. This led me to my current role at Integral and the commercial real estate industry. I enjoy working in the industry because our decisions have such a big impact on people and the environment

What excites you about the industry?

The potential to incorporate blockchain technology and smart contracts. 

What are your plans for growing and leading the industry?

Currently, I am working on a python script to automatically add sanitary plumbing to the building model. The program completes sanitary plumbing tasks much quicker than a human designer and removes tedious tasks, costs down on cost by expediting time-consuming tasks, and creates an efficient system design that uses the least number of inputs. If we can automate building models, we can focus more on sustainable building designs.  

What led you to the CREW Foundation and the CREW Network Foundation Scholarship?

A friend in the CRE industry introduced me to CREW Network and encouraged me to apply for the CREW Network Foundation Scholarship given my experience at Integral Group.

What are your key takeaways from your experience with CREW Foundation so far? Do you plan on joining CREW? If so, can you please share a few things you are looking to gain by being a part of this network?

Through CREW Network, I have been able to connect with the other scholars, and I am looking forward to meeting them at the 2021 CREW Network Convention this fall (assuming restrictions permit). I am looking forward to getting involved with CREW and attending networking events and building relationships from both a social and career perspective.

If you were asked to give one piece of advice to university students looking to build a successful career in commercial real estate, what would it be?

Try working in different industries. Given I had prior experience in other industries, once I entered the CRE industry, I was confident that this was the industry that I wanted to be involved in.

Outside of school, what are your hobbies/passions and what advice do you have for maintaining a good school/life balance to be able to enjoy them??

You must incorporate time for hobbies into your schedule. I set aside time to do the things that I enjoy, like painting and rock climbing, and I find that I am more productive with my schoolwork when I know that I am tight on time or have plans.

Once international travel opens, where will be your first trip?

I was born in China and left when I was four years old. I haven't been back since I was 12-years old, and I would love to do a one-month trip to Asia and see how it has grown over time and explore other areas.