Freshman year is a time to explore your options and learn more about what you want to pursue for the rest of your time at college. One great way to do this is to take honors courses in subjects you are really interested in or want to learn more about. They give you the opportunity to go deeper in that subject. I took advantage of this in the fall and signed up for Engineering Design 100 honors. The class is an introduction to engineering design. It entails of several mini projects and a final mini-capstone project.

I had a pretty good feeling I wanted to be an engineer, but its hard to know if you’ve never taken an engineering class. Taking this class was possibly the best decision I made. The class was very demanding, but it showed me the principles of working in an engineering team. I started to build my toolbox because of this class.  I don’t think I have ever worked so intensely for any other group projects before I took EDSGN.

I ended up making some of the greatest friends because of the group work in the class. I also learned many valuable engineering concepts like solidworks, writing a technical report, proper presentation skills, and steps of the design process. Before this class, I came in like any other honors student, mostly concerned with grades and with a checklist of priorities I believed to be essential for a good college resume. Since then, both my checklist and my concerns have changed. I have realized the true reason for why I am here. I am here to become an engineer, and that is essentially the most important thing to remember. I had heard about the idea of pursuing your personal passion, but I had never quite understood what that meant. I liked doing so many things, I didn’t think it was possible to figure out how to pursue just one passion. After taking this class, there is now no doubt in my mind, that I am passionate about engineering and the principles it is built upon. I have started to put everything into perspective after coming here, and I have learned every experience is meant to be a learning experience. If I fail, I need to learn from it, and move on. It doesn’t help to get stuck on any one failure.

If I’ve always known one thing, it is that I want to be able to help others in any capacity that is possible. I’m not sure yet on how I will make the world a better place, but I know that my avenue for change will be through engineering. I want to be able to create something that will make the lives of people safer and healthier.  I want to be able to combine my passion for helping people with engineering to make a difference in the world, and this class cemented that for me engineering was the right way to go about achieving that goal.