Francisco Zaldivar de Alba | UniSC | University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia

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Francisco Zaldivar de Alba

Student from Queretaro, Mexico.
Studying full time at USC in a double degree in Engineering (Civil Hons) and Environmental Science.

When I was studying engineering in Mexico, I did not have the opportunity to do Environmental Science. It was not available at all. I spoke to other students at USC doing double degrees and they suggested I do it here. The teachers were a big influence too. The teachers here are about passion and that caught my attention. They care a lot about the planet.

Since I was little, I loved animals. I liked to read about what humans are doing to the planet. USC has a lot of resources to make everything work. The Library is huge compared to my uni in Mexico and the databases are good.

The 3-D visualisation facilities are a privilege to have here and to use as a tool. For civil engineering, we can use it to test structures and simulate real life events. You can put in calculations and check if your structure is ok – it can save lives, rather than do it in a real life test.

My goal is to make a construction method. The world is going to keep growing in population and there is a need to develop a house that is sustainable and affordable. I would like to create a construction method for that, for residential and commercial buildings.