Last Friday, March 12th, the McCormack Middle School visited us virtually! We split into two sessions of 1.5 hours each, teaching a total of 51 students over these sessions. Session 1 was led by Maya & Karen, whilst session 2 was lead by Kayla and Nathalie. Additionally, NU students Sena, Tyree, Chris, Samantha, Lauryn, Isabela helped out!
The school came in partnership with the TRIO Talent Search program, which “identifies and assists individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds who have the potential to succeed in higher education.”
Students learned about the Engineering Design Process (see at right), built Paper Towers, and asked our NU students questions about College/STEM. During the EDP intro, we ask students what kinds of skills you think an engineer needs, and someone mentioned you need to know things. This is actually only somewhat true! As an engineer in college, you will learn a lot of the background knowledge needed to succeed, taking classes such as thermodynamics (mechanical engineering), control systems and algorithms (computer engineering), or concrete (civil engineering) [yes – there’s a class all about concrete, it’s actually a pretty complex topic]. In college, you’ll also get some hands-on experience in labs, doing research and practicing practical methods, as well as work experience – at other colleges, this would be via summer internships, but at Northeastern, you get a ton of experience through co-ops. During co-op, students don’t take any classes but instead work at (and often get paid) a company for ~6 months. However, when you actually get to a job after college, there’s still a lot of learning left to do, such as learning specific software or procedures. Therefore, an important skill as an engineer – to be a good learner! That means doing your work, reading skills, writing skills, perseverance, etc!
