Help Us Build Tomorrow: Kevin Gonzalez Ramirez
“The journey I’ve had, ever since ninth grade, has been because of architecture,” notes Kevin Gonzalez Ramirez. A B.S. Arch ‘28 student from San Diego, Gonzalez Ramirez started taking community college courses in Revit and other design programs before high school, when his middle school computer teacher noticed his interest in learning to design a room of his own. “I dreamed of designing a space that I didn’t have at that moment: my own bedroom,” he says.
That dream slowly enlarged, as Gonzalez Ramirez took online architecture courses during the pandemic, started a summer internship with a local design firm, and sought design classes not available at his high school.
In the fall of 10th grade, he was offered a full scholarship to attend a private boarding school with a strong architecture program in Massachusetts. The summer before he moved across the country, Gonzalez Ramirez traveled to the Dominican Republic with a community organization. In 10 days, he and a team of other students helped build a house out of concrete blocks, working alongside the family who would soon inhabit the home. That experience sparked his future career passion: to create affordable housing. “It changed my life forever,” he says.
What drives his motivation? “Wanting to learn more and more,” says Gonzalez Ramirez, who plans to pursue a Real Estate Certificate as well as an M.Arch degree. “And knowing that my mentors and scholarship donors have believed in me, offered this support, it encouraged me to come here. Otherwise, Michigan would have been out of the question as an out-of-state student.” Gonzalez Ramirez is the recipient of the Mitchell Ketai Family Scholarship and the Leonard D. and Jean Kersey Endowed Scholarship.
“I’m truly excited to see what comes next here at Taubman College, especially in the Architecture program,” he says. “It is becoming more technologically integrated, so I’m excited to see how it will be in the next five or 10 years. I plan to work with other organizations and partnerships to bring designs on paper to life.”
— Lisa Powers
