Career Day

A while ago, I was invited to do a Career Day at a middle school by the husband (who I work with) of a school's counselor. I agreed, mostly because he was standing in front of me in my office, and a face-to-face rejection was way more difficult than if I had just been able to politely respond with a "no" email. Although I've been teaching engineering classes at UNR for four semesters, the thought of standing in front of 7th and 8th graders was totally terrifying.
I asked my friend Krista, who's a middle school teacher, for advice, and of course she told me exactly what I was expecting, but hoped not to hear..."just bring props, or something to pass out." Of course, I don't have any cool toys that I paly with at work that I could do a demonstration, and couldn't really think of anything that I could hand out.

So, I went to the school armed only with a bottle of water labeled "Exhaust" that I'd picked up at a recent conference on hydrogen. When I checked the first question I was asked was "Do you have anything you need to set up?"...um, no, I responded, as I looked around to see the other speakers; a police officer with a dog, an architect with drawings, and other people carrying arm loads of crap.

I was to have three different sessions of students, each lasting about 25 minutes. I hadn't prepared a single thing to say. So, the first session was kind of a guineau pig session. I mentioned several different types of engineering, and tried to make them sound as cool as possible.. "as a computer engineer, you could write software for nintendo games....as a mechanical engineer, you can design and build cars..". And then I talked about what I do..working on alternative-fuel vehicles and other renewable energy. And, of course, I drank out of my exhaust water. I looked at the clock when I was done, and only 10 minutes had passed. Luckily, each student had a handout of questions that they needed to get answered "How much money do you make"..."What is your favorite thing about your job?".

But, after they were done asking their boilerplate questions, I was totally amazed at some of the thougtful questions that I received from some of those middle school students. They asked me questions like "Does using the alternative fuels change the power output of the vehicle"...and other extremely thoughtful questions. I was amazed. I don't get that level of thinking out of students in my upper-level engineering classes.

Anyway, I just received a thank you letter from the school yesterday, and handwritten letters from several students that are just so cute I wanted to share. Here's one:

Dear Ms. Amber..
I just think it's so neat that you are an engineer for the D.r.i. (Desert
Reasearch istitute). Solving energy crisises, creating new energy efficiant
materials, it all looks pretty cool. Almost as if your saving the
world. Science to me truly is a facinating subject. Everything
happens unexpectingly. Also, drinking that exaust waster was also pretty
cool. I would really consider this career as it truly looks
promising.
Sinciraly,
Erik ..

and another

Dear, Amber..
I really like what you job was about and I would love to look more into
like the curtian ranks. Anyways thank you for telling us about reaserch
engineering and I am a 7th grader doing and participating in 8th grade math so
next year I'll be doing Algabra.
Sincerly Collin...

Don't worry, I don't know waht curtian ranks are, either.