The Engineering Experience

I’m here, now what? I spent freshman year taking all the necessary classes, spending hours studying just to transition to mechanical engineering. The great thing about Purdue is you get to delve deep into your major almost immediately after transitioning into it. I had known what I wanted and how I was going to get it. But as I sat in my first Thermodynamics lecture, I had never felt more unsure of whether I belonged there. Engineering courses are never easy, I knew that going into my Thermodynamics class. But with Thermodynamics, and most engineering courses, it’s important to understand the fundamentals, as everything builds on them. I knew that I had to seek out help soon. I started scouring my course pages, Purdue’s website, and asking all my teachers where I could go to get help. I discovered that the mechanical engineering department holds many “help rooms”, that run from 9am-5pm, in which students could get access to personalized assistance from teaching assistants on their ME c...

With winter break quickly approaching, you might be wondering how to stay connected to Women in Engineering if you're off campus. Whether you’re a high school student with concerns about college life, a first-year Purdue student with internship questions, or a senior needing some career advice, having a wide network of women in engineering to reach out to is always useful. But it can be a struggle to build that network or sustain it if you don’t have many women in engineering naturally around you, like you might on campus. So, here are some suggestions on how to stay connected! Communities/Organizations: If you know where to look, there are organizations that are built for women in engineering of all ages. The Society of Women Engineers has an alumni network, conferences, as well as high school, collegiate, and professional chapters. Girls Who Code has great programs and clubs to join. Some high schools may have women in engineering clubs to join, and there may be professional orga...

As the semester wraps up, a few of us engineering students decided to look back on the classes that have made our time at Purdue memorable so far. From BME’s tissue engineering labs to IE’s manufacturing class to ME’s infamous fluid mechanics, engineers really get to learn about everything. Here are some of our favorite classes we have taken at Purdue Natalie Anderson - IE 577: Human Factors in Engineering My favorite class to date has been Industrial Engineering 577: Human Factors in Engineering, which I took this semester to fulfill a Technical Elective/IE Selective requirement. This course is centered around the physical/ergonomic, psychological, social, and environmental aspects that impact human-machine interaction. Logistically, it counts for three credits, meets three times a week, and includes a mix of exams and labs for the grade breakdown. I really enjoyed the variety of material covered in lectures and later implemented in experimental design, execution, and analysis with ot...