High schoolers get feel for engineering at NSCC

LYNN – Thirty-one high school students have spent part of the summer engineering their future by picking up credits at North Shore Community College.”People think I should know what I want to do when I grow up, and I don’t know yet,” said 15-year-old Angelik Elswick, a Lynn English High School student. “I thought I’d try this to see if I liked engineering.”The students spent their last day of class Thursday toiling over electrical boards. They were trying to decipher an electrical problem as part of Professor Scott Stimpson’s Introduction to Engineering course. The kids, who came from Lynn, Peabody, Chelsea and other area communities, are part of the college’s dual enrollment program, which has students taking college courses for credit along with their high school class load.Stimpson said a lot of kids think they want to be engineers, but many don’t even understand fully what that entails. The word engineer covers a variety of fields, he added.Students took a field trip to Varian Semiconductor Equipment in Gloucester where they saw first-hand what engineers do and, perhaps more importantly, learned what they need to do to become one, Stimpson said.After touring the facility, workers followed up with a discussion on college and career paths where their excitement and passion for what they do spilled over. Elaine Webb, a senior product quality engineer who arranged the tour, called the students the “best group we’ve had for asking questions.”School officials call the program part of a heightened push to entice students into high-demand science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, careers. The fact that the media has made much about the lack of women in STEM fields was not lost on the girls in the class.”I wanted to do this because there aren’t enough women in the engineering field,” said Lynn English student Darlee Chavez, 16. “We need to empower girls ? and this was a great opportunity to expose them to engineering.”Chavez said it also didn’t hurt that she likes math and science and already has plans to study chemical engineering.She said a class field trip to Beyond Benign, a green chemical engineering organization in Wilmington, was a real eye-opener.Neither Carrera Dean nor Victoria Butler felt the pressure to participate because of their gender, but Dean admitted she thinks her mother might have pushed her had she not chosen to take the class on her own.”I want to be an engineer anyway,” she said.Dean said she is leaning toward bio-mechanical engineering and prosthetics. Butler said she liked the idea of the free credits.”I like engineering, too, but more civil,” she added.Omar Gomez, 16, and Alecio Dasilva, 16, both from Chelsea High School, leaned over their electrical board plugging in wires trying to make the correct connections.Dasilva also wants to be an engineer. He likes the hands-on aspect of the job and called the four-week program helpful.”I learned a type of math that I think will help me in the future,” he said. “This also helped me see many different aspects of engineering.”Gomez said he had nothing planned for the summer, and his guidance counselor thought he might like the program.”I do,” he said, adding that he likes the idea of being an engineer. “They create the future. They design everything. They’re the ones that have a hand in it all.”