Engineering curious
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Anonymous
| My junior is a strong stem student who might want to study engineering but isn’t sure. Any suggestions for resources for him to learn more about what eningeering programs are like and what grads do? I’ve found books on how engineers think, but I’m looking for something a bit more practical. Thanks! |
Anonymous
| UMD used to have a summer program for HS kids to explore engineering options. Do not know if it still exists though. |
Anonymous
| Maybe talk to a few career professionals who are Engineers. Does he like building things with his hands? Does he like math and physics? |
Anonymous
It did last year - applications are due preferably by mid March so keep an eye out. |
Anonymous
| That’s NOT hawt. |
Anonymous
| 6% of bachelor's degrees are engineering and 3% are computer science. Yet by reading DCUM, you'd think that most students go to school for those two degrees. |
Anonymous
Just like there are little more than 20 T20ish schools, but Yet by reading DCUM, you'd think that most students go to those schools. |
Anonymous
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I would look at pre college engineering programs and also colleges where you don’t have to apply as a certain major to get in. Then they can take more courses freshman and sophomore year of college before they decide.
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Anonymous
The money will be. 
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Anonymous
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I suspect for most jobs, you don’t really know what it’s like until you do it. So internships are really important. Engineering is extremely broad. I did 3 internships and they were all totally different, it helped me figure out what kind of jobs l wanted to go for upon graduation. For a high schooler hard to say how they would learn about that. I just chose engineering because it seemed like a good way to support myself and I’m good at math and physics. More guidance would have been great though.
It’s great that you’re helping them with this, my parents didn’t even know l was going to college or what l was taking until l told them l got in. |
Anonymous
| What types of clubs does his high school have? Any engineering? Robotics? They are a good place to see what is of interest to them. How about classes? Does your high school offer any engineering electives? Some local colleges or community colleges could have summer STEM programs to explore options. For our student he has family members who are engineers so he could get a sense of what they did, areas of their work. He also joined the engineering club in High school and taught himself Autocad at the suggestion of his uncle. His high school also had engineering classes he could take his senior year which really cemented his interest. He also started to take things apart that were broken - like our old lawnmower. THere seemed to be a natural interest in how things worked. |
Anonymous
Yes, there are several colleges that offer this. Some also offer just a random Saturday "Explore Engineering" type of event where prospective students can tour, do some hands on things, and talk to current engineering students and professors. If I were you, I'd have him just look for some schools he is just generally interested in, or whatever school is most local to you, and see if they have something like this. |
Anonymous
| Does his high school have colleges come during admission events? Do any recruiting from your high school? If he was feeling particularly outgoing he could research your local colleges/universities and reach out to their undergraduate office - they might be able to tell them about HS career fairs or ways to find out options to explore engineering. |
Anonymous
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Bucknell used to have a good Intro to Engineering 1-week summer course. Was helpful to my son.
A piece of advice: A good test for engineering is whether the kid loves math, more so than the sciences. Most engineering is a whole lot of calculus. |
Anonymous
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I've heard great things about Project Catapult
https://www.rose-hulman.edu/admissions-and-aid/early-planning/operation-catapult/index.html |