Melodie Cros | Graduation Story
Winding Road to Engineering
From Valencia College to Cornell University, Melodie Cros continues to explore the whys.
— by Linda Shrieves
As a kid, Melodie Cros often questioned the way things worked.
“I was the kid that, people would give me an answer and I wasn’t really satisfied. I would say, well, why?’
Today, as a systems engineer, her job is to find the answer.
A 2016 graduate who earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical and computer engineering technology at Valencia College, Melodie began working at Lockheed Martin as an intern in 2015. When her internship wrapped up, Lockheed offered her a job.
Since then, Melodie has continued to grow and learn. In 2019, she applied for Lockheed Martin’s engineering leadership program. Through that program, she could earn a master’s degree and burnish her leadership skills.
Once accepted into the leadership program, she and the other Lockheed employees started taking graduate level engineering classes at Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey. After the initial classes, students could continue their master’s degree programs at Lockheed or apply to other programs.
Valencia College professor Raul Valery (left) recognized that Melodie was drawn to the technical aspect of audio engineering and suggested she enroll in the college’s bachelor’s degree program for electrical engineering technology.
Melodie knew other Lockheed managers who had finished their master’s degrees at Cornell University, so she applied – and was thrilled to be admitted to the Ivy League university. But working full-time and taking classes on a part-time basis was tough. Still, she managed to finish her degree – mostly online, thanks to Covid-19 – within two years.
She absorbed a lot from the Cornell program, but she also came away impressed with the basics that she’d learned at Valencia College.
“I learned a lot from my professors here (at Valencia) and learned a lot from my professors at Cornell,” she says. “Sure, the ones at Cornell were very specialized in systems engineering, so they were able to focus on that. But I got a good overall grounding in engineering from my professors at Valencia.”
Melodie celebrated her graduation from Cornell University in May 2021.
Finding her purpose at Valencia
Melodie, who grew up in North Carolina, arrived at Valencia College at age 21, trying to figure out her path in life. She started out in the college’s sound production technology program, hoping to launch a career in audio engineering. While studying for an associate in science degree in sound production technology, she and a classmate won a national award from the Audio Engineering Society – a rarity for community college students -- but Melodie’s future wasn’t in creating soundtracks.
That’s because one of her Valencia professors, Raul Valery, noticed she had a knack for the technical side of audio, so he suggested that she enroll in Valencia College’s bachelor’s degree program in electrical engineering technology after completing her associate degree.
VC students Melodie Cros and Jonathan Luna spent three months polishing the post-production sound (and sound effects) for “The Tailor’s Apprentice,” a feature-length film directed by University of Central Florida film student Jeff Lehman.
“He said, ‘Hey, you’re catching onto this more technical side – we’re opening a bachelor’s degree in engineering’ and he suggested I get a degree in engineering,” says Melodie. “I never had a professor who encouraged me like that, so I thought, ‘Well, I do like the more technical part, so that’s ok.’ But I never thought I would be an electrical engineer. I figured I’d become a sound engineer.”
Instead, Melodie soon found herself knee-deep in lab reports, circuit analysis and calculus — working toward a bachelor’s degree in electrical and computer engineering technology.
For their work on “The Tailor’s Apprentice,” Melodie Cros and fellow VC student Jonathan Luna (pictured with competition organizer John Krivit) won second place at a 2013 Audio Engineering Society competition from the Audio Engineering Society – beating contestants from New York University, University of Miami, Ithaca College, as well as college students from Germany, Spain, Sweden, Japan, Canada and Japan.
Looking back, she realizes how much she discovered about herself at Valencia College.
“I learned that you really can do anything you set your mind to,” she says. “My whole life, I was always behind in math. Growing up, in middle school and high school, I had teachers who just said, ‘It’s not your thing.’ I discovered that, if you put your mind to it, and you study, you can do it.” And at Valencia College, she found professors who encouraged her and helped her understand difficult subject matter.
“I attribute this to Valencia a lot. Math never clicked with me. I don’t think it was because I wasn’t motivated,” she recalls. “And then I came to Valencia and I had this phenomenal calculus teacher. ‘Finally,’ I thought, ‘I get it!’ And once it clicks, it’s not scary, it’s fun.”
Now a decade after graduation, she’s proud of her accomplishments – and her experience at Valencia College.
“Sometimes I have imposter syndrome, but I feel really proud that I went to Valencia,” Melodie says. “I’m working with people who went to Harvard, Georgia Tech, UF and UCF.
It made me realize we’re all in the pursuit of knowledge together. It shouldn’t matter what school you went to. If you have a passion for it, we’re all in this together.”
At Valencia College, we work every day to create a level playing field for college students of all backgrounds, fashioning a college where every student can succeed. And our students continue to amaze and surprise us. Read more of their stories.