On July 22, 54 11th-grade students in their first year of Engineering Academy Greenville, Next Engineer’s three-year program for 15- to 18-year-olds in the Upstate, visited the Clemson campus for a day of learning that was more like a trip to an amusement park than school.
The new generation of prospective engineers are products of a different world than their forebears. For instance, participant Hadley Medeiros, a junior at Daniel High School, said the notion of becoming an engineer came to her via a streaming service.
“I’ve wanted to be a mechanical engineer since I watched the Imagineering documentary on Disney Plus,” said Medeiros. “It shows how they built the attractions at the Disney theme parks. I’d never even been in a robotics club or anything like that, but after watching that documentary, I said, ‘I want to do that!’”
Medeiros said she desperately wanted to get some engineering experience after that, and that’s how she discovered the Next Engineers program. “I think it’s preparing me for the next step. I’ve learned that there are a lot of fields in engineering so at least one of them will be right for me,” she said. “It’s also been helpful with approaching real-world problems and figuring out how not to get freaked out by something that doesn’t work quite right or seems overwhelming. Plus, it has a nice scholarship opportunity!”
Read the full article on ClemsonNews: Clemson and GE team up to inspire high schoolers to become engineers | Clemson News
Greenville's Engineering Academy is currently accepting applications for Cohort 2.
