Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology has several summer programs to choose from. Summer Camps | Rose-Hulman
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Even if the WPI programs are too expensive, I bet if you reached out to someone in admissions and explained your daughter’s interest they could match her up with a college student or a professor to shadow or talk with or something like that, or maybe even someone from career services who could talk a bit about typical careers for their various STEM students, including engineers. If she’s not sure that she wants something STEM then WPI might not be the right place for her for actual college, because it’s very STEM focused, but if you live close, may as well take advantage of the resources there.
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Thanks for this idea. I was looking at them and they are pretty pricey!
There are number of other summer engineering programs in Massachusetts.
Teen Life provides links to some Boston programs that might be of interest. The University of Massachusetts Amherst offers need-based scholarships for its summer camps.
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I’m addition to the great suggestions already made, look to see if SWE, Society of Women Engineers, is hosting any events in your area. My D did a number of summer programs through them. They also have publications specifically geared for high school students.
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I’ll second eyemgh’s comment about being easier to transfer out of engineering than into it. Very hard to catch up moving into engineering because of all those sequential classes.
One thing to consider are some of the characteristics that are commonly found in engineers. They are usually visual learners. They like to solve puzzles. Are good at math and it comes easily to them. Does this generally describe your daughter?
One other aspect about going into engineering. There are many different fields within engineering. Very hard for a high school student to really know what specific field they might want to pursue. However, engineering school teaches the basic and a certain way to approach problems. That means that you can move somewhat between disciplines if you want. I started off studying structural analysis in civil engineering and had a long career in aerospace.
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Sample of one. Our DD knew that engineering was what she wanted to major in. Her dad is an engineer so she had a lot of exposure to all sorts of engineering (EE, ME, CE, etc). She DID finish her engineering degree and she loved the courses, but along the way, she decided she never actually wanted to work as an engineer. And she never will. She picked up a second major, and that more aligns with her career, and interests.
So…even if your kid knows they might actually not know!
ETA…in high school this kid did absolutely nothing EC wise that was related to engineering even in a remote way. Nada!
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Besides all the great advice posted above, I just wanted to add the following:
If math is instinctive for her,
and it comes naturally to her,
and she can immediately problem-solve, then she probably has the right idea about a focus on engineering.
My children are this way; they gravitate towards problem-solving in math.
Our eldest daughter was frequently approached in her math classes, by other students, who didn’t understand what the teacher/s were explaining on the chalkboard.
My daughter uses analogies and scenarios to explain problem concepts. She still does that when she supervises her junior engineers.
Now, three out of her four teachers, welcomed her help. They would bring her to the board and ask her to demonstrate how she interpreted and understood the concepts.
One teacher gave her a poor citizenship grade because the students were always going to DD’s desk, asking her for help. In that specific class, my daughter explained to us that the teacher was really poor at providing good examples, so my daughter read the book, and figured it out on her own. Then later she would explain it.
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Also University of Kansas and Purdue
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