The day I plummeted 180 feet marked the beginning of my journey to becoming a Roller Coaster designer. Between I-94 and Grand Ave lies the beautiful Six Flags Great America, home to a sprawling collection of world-class roller coasters. From The Batman that leaves your feet dangling below the track to the ginormous 200 foot hyper coaster Raging Bull, Six Flags has it all. 

On frightfest 2022 I got on the RMC ground up coaster Goliath for the first time. It has steel as the track and wood supports that look like spiderwebs. The way the construction group (RMC) that built Goliath manipulated the wooden coaster, making you flip upside down during the zero g-stall and having a nearly vertical 85 degree drop was so fascinating to me, similar to a kid staring Superman. 

“How could a wooden coaster do such crazy loops?”, I asked myself.

I started asking all sorts of questions on how roller coasters work and how they create them. Eventually roller coasters became something I researched everyday, in school and outside of school for the fun of it. Scanning through news articles at night, at times my mom screamed at me for going past curfew. I’d binge watching Coaster Studios to the point where my eyes stung for being blood shot red. The coolest thing I learned is how RMC turns old wooden coasters into world class wooden and steel coasters.

That curiosity only grew when I entered High School. In the beginning of freshman year, I was sitting in Mr.Kaider's office (my counselor), he asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up. I kept my head down because I was a little embarrassed to answer, I felt my face slowly turning hot and red. I never told anyone that I wanted to be a roller coaster designer, I thought it was something nerdy and that If I spoke to people about it they'd laugh at me. But I knew he was the one adult who could help me reach my dream.

“I want to be someone that designs roller coasters but I know I need a mechanical engineering degree, something like that” I said to him.

“ Oh wow that’s  awesome man!  I’ll guide you towards the engineering route then”, Mr Kaider replied. 

Mr Kaider was so cool about it. Thanks to him I felt thousands of pounds of embarrassment come off my shoulders. He proceeded to assign me Intro to engineering and honors geometry. When I heard the clicking of his keyboard, when he was finishing up my schedule, that's when I knew this is going to be my future, that this is legit. 

To be a Roller Coaster designer is something that I realized is very unique. As a junior now I spend a lot of time speaking to peers about it. Throughout my high school journey, many kids have shared to me that they wanted to be an engineer as well. Many of them want to do electrical engineering because they “pay good”, some want to do aerospace engineering because they can make awesome spacecraft parts. It made me think if being a roller coaster designer is really worth it. I’ve embraced what I want to do in the future and it’s enabled me to love engineering and see it through a different perspective.

My dream is to one day plummet 180 feet down a roller coaster that I created. It might have crazy twists and turns or it might take me upside down, who knows. It might be fast or slow. It might be a large 500 foot coaster or a small family sized 50 foot coaster, who knows! Like the coasters I dream of designing, my journey has been filled with ups,  downs, turns and twists, but every turn made the thrill of pursuing roller coaster designing more fun.