Summer Workshop Introduces High Schoolers to Engineering

With a hands-on, fun-filled summer program for high school students called Engineering Days, OU’s Gallogly College of Engineering is showing high school juniors and seniors that the programs at OU Engineering are accessible to many different students and provide a way for them to express their creativity though problem solving.

At a time when demand for professionals in these fields is higher than ever, the program is providing a crucial pathway to these aspiring engineers.

Since 2015, Engineering Days has hosted one-day learning experiences over four weekends in June where students come to campus and complete an engineering project under the guidance of faculty and current OU students, who share their own engineering journey.

Students can choose which days, or combination of days, to attend to suit their interests. Some fields of study offered are aerospace engineering, engineering physics, civil and architectural engineering, mechanical engineering, computer science and others.

This summer, the college welcomed just over 150 students to the summer program, spread across 10 days, surpassing last year’s enrollment of 88 students.

More than 70% of participants are from Oklahoma high schools, traveling from areas across the state like Ardmore, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Duncan, Chandler, Sallisaw and more.

The program reaches students from diverse backgrounds: 80% of participants will be first-generation college students, and 40% are from underrepresented communities.

“I’m glad that I went to Engineering Days because it made me see myself for the first time here at OU as an engineer,” said Isabelle Ruiz, an OU senior engineering physics major, who continues to be involved in Engineering Days by assisting faculty and sharing her OU experience with current high schoolers.

Ruiz went to Del City High School and participated in five day-long sessions at Engineering Days before she applied to OU. During those five days, she built a rocket, paper airplanes, bridges, programmed robotic cars and designed a water irrigation system.

“It is important to have someone be exposed to as many fields in engineering as possible so they can explore something they see themselves doing in the near future,” Ruiz said.

The exposure to a variety of engineering majors is by design. Lectures and activities are developed by faculty from across the engineering disciplines and have assistance from current Gallogly students with demonstrations.

The program has helped to make engineering careers a reality for many young students.

“I was really scared about looking into engineering at first,” said Averi Spradlin, senior at Coweta High School, who attended the weekend that focused on biomedical engineering and chemical, biological and materials engineering.

Spradlin said she plans on attending OU for her undergraduate degree and wanted to come to the event to learn more about the programs.

“Now that I have gone to through [Engineering Days], I feel more confident about it,” she said. “I know where to start and that I’ll have help if I need it.”

Another current OU student, Cale Childs, a sophomore civil engineering major, said his experience at Engineering Days as a high school student helped him discover his engineering interests.

“I knew I wanted to do engineering,” he said. “However, I had very wide interests, and I attended Engineering Days to help me learn more about the different disciplines and which I find most interesting. I did a lot of research prior to the experience and afterwards, but Engineering Days was very influential in my final decision.”

Ruiz, too, said the summer program was incredibly influential in her own decision to explore an engineering career.

“In a lot of the projects, we got to work in groups, which gave me the confidence to succeed in each project. These experiences made us students work together and brought us closer together, even though we were all from different backgrounds,” Ruiz said. “Engineering Days taught us how collaborative and supportive the OU engineering environment was.”

To learn more about Engineering Days and Gallogly College of Engineering programs, click here.