Growing up, I always knew I wanted to do something that involved working with hands-on projects, math, science, and design. I never really thought hard about being an engineer until early high school. I ever got pushed to think about being an engineer when I was in middle school, and do not recall ever being informed on what exactly an engineer would do for a living. Today I had the opportunity of granting this to middle school students of Columbus. As a volunteer at Engineer for a Day 2018, I was able to take my past and present experiences as a mechanical engineering major at OSU and inform kids about the major and why I chose it.
Middle school students, for the most part, usually will not find being an engineer very exciting. I’ll admit, too, that if someone asked me if I wanted to crunch numbers for the rest of my life when I was 13 years old, I would probably say no too. But being able to help them understand all the possibilities with an engineering degree was priceless.
When I saw their interests growing when I told them about NASA projects and some of the labs I am currently working on in my engineering class, I saw myself, as a middle school student, wondering what I would decide to do with my life by the time I became old enough to go to college. It was a great experience to help them take another step in their education and earl professional development.