16 October 2026

In engineering design, risk is managed through margins of safety, redundancy, and statistical bounds. Stress concentrations are analyzed, thermal simulations are run, and strict material allowables are established to ensure systems behave predictably. Yet, in both career development and structural evolution, there comes a time when staying strictly within an established baseline becomes the greatest risk of all. Optimization inside a local maximum often prevents the discovery of a global optimum.

Earlier this year, through Kami M&P, PLLC in partnership with the Association of Filipino Engineers of Washington (AFEW), the Antonio and Carmen Cua Excellence in High School Award was established to celebrate the Filipino immigrant experience. Created in honor of my parents Antonio and Carmen Cua, this scholarship recognizes high school students who embody the very ethos that allowed my family of immigrant origins to thrive: calculating risk, showing unyielding tenacity, and exercising the courage to build something meaningful for others beyond themselves.

Recently at the AFEW 33rd Annual Gala, the selection committee and I awarded the 2026 honor to Jewel Christianne Malit, a remarkable student leader, fabricator, and student director from Renton, Washington. Her story provided a striking reminder that the most profound engineering lesson isn't how to avoid taking chances, but how to execute deliberately especially when direction points toward uncharted territory.

Absorbing Foundational Risk: How Immigrant Parents Expand the Design Space 

To understand how to evaluate risk in modern practice, one must first look at the foundation upon which current opportunities sit.

When Antonio and Carmen Cua navigated their lives, and when Jewel’s parents made the life-altering choice to move their family from the Philippines to the United States when she was just an infant, they were executing the ultimate real-world risk trade-off. They left behind familiar cultural networks, established social safety nets, and known career trajectories. In engineering terms, they took a system operating in a known equilibrium and subjected it to an untested, high-stress environment with no guarantee of a predictable outcome.

They didn't do this out of recklessness. They did it to expand the design space for themselves and the next generation.

By absorbing that foundational risk upfront, immigrant parents generate a structural margin not only for themselves but for those who follow. Because of their courage, the next generation inherits a rare luxury: the privilege of choice. They are not forced to accept the very first path that presents itself simply to survive. They have been given the operational agency necessary to ask deeper questions, explore, and take further calculated intellectual risks of their own.

Diverging from the Local Maximum: The Decisions to Change Course

Jewel’s journey illustrates this dynamic in action. As President of FRC Team 4131 (Iron Patriots), she has logged over 500 hours operating shop machinery—bandsaws, lathes, and mills—translating complex CAD models into functional, hundred-pound competitive robots. She has established STEM programs reaching hundreds of K–8 students, raised tens of thousands of dollars in program revenue, and managed extensive mentorship networks across multiple school districts.

By all standard metrics, the most low-risk, predictable choice for her higher education would have been Mechanical Engineering. The momentum was already there. The achievements were validated. The resume was built.

Yet, when evaluating her long-term career path, Jewel chose to execute a major directional shift to pursue studies in Biology.

Leaving behind a well-established, highly successful trajectory to enter an entirely new academic domain reflects the broader immigrant experience. Much like exchanging a comfortable upbringing in the Philippines for the immediate reality of unfamiliar customs—navigating what it means to stand apart, adapting to a new society, and preserving a core identity while reaching for expanded opportunities—a technical shift demands leaning into uncertainty. Departing from a path of proven mastery feels inherently uncomfortable. It requires trading the security of established prestige for the ambiguity of a steep learning curve.

Yet, embarking on a new path is not a step backward, nor is it abandoning past work. Whether shifting from music to machining, or moving from mechanical systems to cellular biology, the analytical framework remains intact. The systemic thinking, discipline, and problem solving skills learned on a shop floor or in a CAD environment are fully portable—when applied to biological systems, those engineering tools act as force multipliers. 

Track Record as Proof of Concept: Self-Belief Built on Execution

When taking on the risk of an uncharted path, the fear of stepping into the unknown is natural. Yet, confidence isn't about blind optimism; it is rooted in self-awareness and self-belief. In engineering qualification, when a complex assembly is evaluated heading into a new, demanding service environment, historical test data, stress cycles, and proof testing are reviewed. For leaders and students alike, recognizing what has already been accomplished serves as the ultimate proof of concept—a quiet, grounded belief in one's own capacity to navigate whatever comes next.

Jewel’s past achievements are far more than accolades on a page; they are a clear map of her underlying operational muscle:

In manufacturing, a critical process is never qualified by hoping for the best; the underlying discipline and problem-solving capability that make repeatable success possible are validated instead. The same applies to personal growth. Sometimes, the hardest part of stepping into a new field is taking a moment to look back at what has already been built—to realize that one is not starting empty-handed.

This self-belief is where the generational relay race comes full circle. The original risk absorbed by immigrant parents was spent to buy design margin—not so their children would play it safe, but so they would have the structural footing to take meaningful risks of their own. Recognizing one's own track record is how that initial investment is honored. When a student recognizes that she has already organized complex teams, raised thousands of dollars, and led hundred-member ensembles as Drum Major, entering a biology laboratory is no longer intimidating. It is simply trusting one's own execution engine, stepping into the expanded design space built by previous generations, and having the self-belief to see just how far curiosity can carry the journey.

Final Thoughts

Risk is an inherent variable in engineering, career development, and life. One can attempt to minimize it through inaction, remaining safely within existing paradigms. Or one can evaluate it, prepare for it, and step intentionally into the unknown, backed by the confidence of past execution.

To engineers, leaders, and students navigating their own career choices, consider these takeaways when facing a major crossroad:

• Honor the Foundation: Recognize the calculated risks taken by those before—parents, mentors, and early program pioneers. Their courage created the structural margin that allows individuals to choose their direction today.

• Portability of Discipline: Never fear changing a field or focus. The core skills of engineering—structured problem-solving, root-cause analysis, and systematic execution—serve in any domain entered.

• Leverage the Track Record: Use past achievements not as a trophy case to rest upon, but as proof of the capacity to learn, adapt, and succeed in new environments.

• Believe in the Journey: Trust the execution engine already built, embrace the uncertainty of new questions, and give oneself permission to discover where curiosity leads.

Congratulations to Jewel Christianne Malit, recipient of the 2026 Antonio and Carmen Cua Excellence in High School Award. May all engineers and leaders approach their next technical crossroad with the same clarity, tenacity, and courage.  I am glad to have found Jewel to honor the legacy of my parents.

thx, m