Chase (top left) and Izzy (holding football) Barajas transferred to UTC with the intention of getting involved in campus life, including winning an intramural flag football championship. Photo courtesy of Izzy Barajas.
When Chase and Izzy Barajas transferred to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, they didn’t realize it would mark the start of a new chapter in their relationship.
After transferring to UTC (Chase came in 2022 and Izzy arrived the following year), the recently married couple have earned their degrees, started careers in Chattanooga and bought a home.
They didn’t just find a school; they found their community.
“We fell in love with Chattanooga once we visited the school,” Izzy said. “We were like, ‘This is a really awesome place.’ It’s a place to be.’”
The couple met while attending Weddington High School in Charlotte, North Carolina. After graduating, they each pursued their athletic dreams at separate universities in North Carolina. Chase attended High Point University to run for the cross-country team, while Izzy attended Mars Hill University to play soccer.
Both were injured while playing their respective sports and decided to leave their institutions. Izzy wanted to experience a larger school environment and Chase wanted to pursue mechanical engineering, a program not offered at High Point.
“You could network,” she said. “I truly loved the business school because there were always so many different opportunities.”
The Barajas couple made a point of attending extracurriculars.
She currently serves as a client support manager at Unum, a position she secured through an internship she found at one of RCOB’s career fairs.
“They just had a table out there,” Izzy recalled. “When I became an intern, I was like, ‘I want to do that.’ I want to continue to have a fresh perspective for these students that are currently coming.”
Chase, a nuclear steam supply system engineer at the Sequoyah Nuclear Plant for TVA, said the size of the College of Engineering and Computer Science and its classes were ideal.
“Being very technical sometimes, having smaller class sizes helped a lot compared to people I went to high school with who went to way larger institutions,” he said. “You have kind of big classes your whole way through your graduation. Even the very technical senior-level classes, you’re still in a group of 50-plus.
“Everyone I was in class with, if you applied yourself, you were given opportunities to succeed. I mean, the people I know who wanted it went and got it, crushed it, and got jobs. You have that one-on-one connection with your professors and other people in your department.”
Chase, who received his bachelor’s degree in May, was a member of the Rocket Mocs’ senior design group. He was surprised to learn that many of the engineers he currently works with had similar experiences at UTC working with UC Foundation Professor of Mechanical Engineering Trevor Elliott.
“We have a bunch of UTC engineers that work there and graduated in 2012, 2016, and all went through the same design through Baja or Rocket Mocs with them,” Chase said.
He explained how the course helped prepare him for his career.
“You go through the whole base from starting it out, designing stuff, making sure you have budgeting, safety, any sort of regulations you have to follow,” he said. “Everyone loves it. Everyone that was part of it had a lot of fun.”
The couple lived off campus during their time at UTC but wanted to stay connected to campus and deepen their roots in the community.
Izzy joined the Delta Zeta sorority, was a member of the pickleball club and was active in intramural soccer, basketball and flag football. Chase helped coach in his downtime.
The couple is still active at UTC sporting events.
“We have already invested in the Mocs Club,” Izzy said. “We love sports, very big sports people. We have basketball season tickets. All the amenities that you get at the discounted rate when you graduate, people don’t really know about it.”
The Barajas’ credit UTC for their success as young professionals and for helping them build a community in Chattanooga.
“UTC sets you up for success so that if you have that drive, you are in the driver’s seat,” Izzy said. “It’s like you have all the tools and resources that you need to be successful. If you just take that and run with it, you will be successful no matter what. I think there are so many resources and opportunities. We were just able to take advantage of them.”
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