The College’s new weeklong camp blends engineering sessions and insider info on college admission to hook students on STEM majors.
Summer Engineering Institute campers toured the Student Competition Center and heard from team members about the vehicles they designed and built. Here, a camper gets to sit the in cockpit of the GT Motorsports Formula SAE car. (Photo: Liz Kelly)
For many high school students, a summertime Tuesday might include hanging out with friends, relaxing by the pool, or a part-time job.
For a dozen metro Atlanta high school students, a recent Tuesday found them Zooming with a representative from NASCAR’s Hendrick Motorsports and sliding into a simulator at Georgia Tech’s Student Competition Center to test their own driving skills. Later, they designed miniature solar-powered cars to race against each other and talked to an engineer from General Motors.
Welcome to the College of Engineering Summer Engineering Institute (SEI), a series of two weeklong camps for students to get excited about all things engineering and help them craft a compelling college application.
In week one, motorsports was the portal to almost every facet of engineering the group explored — aerospace and materials science for designing light, sleek vehicles; electrical and computer for the sensors and electronic systems in those vehicles; mechanical for the engines and chassis. For high schoolers in the camp’s second week, aerodynamics served as the focal point, including indoor skydiving.
“Summer camps are a great way to build our pipeline and get students excited about engineering while preparing them to successfully apply to college,” said Joy Harris, director of Women in Engineering (WIE) and a Georgia Tech graduate herself. “I did summer camps in junior high school and high school, and it changed my trajectory for college.”
Organized by Harris and WIE Assistant Director Desiree Turner, the camp was open to all high schoolers, and participants ended up split evenly between girls and boys. Their agenda for the week mixed engineering-focused activities — a design thinking workshop, engineering design project, and lab visits — with college prep sessions. Students learned about writing college application essays, taking the SAT, and Georgia Tech’s campus resources and admission process.
That mix of engineering exploration and insider admission tips was especially attractive to Falyssa, a rising junior from Duluth who would be the first in her family to attend college.
“I’ve never really had college advice, especially from admission officers, and the advice they've given me in this program is invaluable,” she said. “I would have never known how to write a college essay, how to get into Georgia Tech or any other top college without the advice they've given me. They really have prepared me for junior year and the rest of my high school planning.”
Falyssa, whose last name is being withheld because she’s a minor, has taught herself to code and pursued several related certifications. But she said she hasn’t been able to get much hands-on engineering experience.
“Georgia Tech is the dream school that I want to go to, so I wanted to come here to not only get to know Georgia Tech, but also get to know more about engineering,” she said. “At school, we don't really get to deep-dive, so I was looking for more of a challenge and also to meet other fun kids who also like engineering.”
SEI participants worked on an engineering design project throughout the week-long camp, top, and heard from members of the RoboJackets robotics competition team as part of their day at the Georgia Tech Student Competition Center, bottom. (Top Photo: Mikey Fuller, Bottom Photo: Liz Kelly)
Falyssa is most interested in computer engineering and circuit design. For their SEI design project, she and her teammates worked on a prototype of a cheaper, more effective tool to help people with autism spectrum disorders communicate. It’s an idea borne from her own family: She has a younger sibling with autism who doesn’t speak.
Turner said having a full week to work with students and giving them time to explore their passions like that is the real value of SEI.
“We get to spend a lot more time with the students, and they’re exposed to so many different sides of STEM and engineering than we traditionally are able to do in a one-day program,” she said.
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