In the 1970s, students couldn’t do homework on laptop computers, text during class or listen to Supertramp hits on their iPods. They played music on gigantic records and completed assignments on typewriters. Today, we have a significant group of people to thank for all these technological advances that have made our daily lives more bearable – engineers.

Lance Stewman is a senior chemical engineering major who, in addition to taking classes to fulfill his graduation requirements, is involved in the WSU branch of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.

“Right now, we’re building a car that is powered and stopped by chemical reactions,” Stewman said. “One of the most effective things we came up with was a homemade battery. We used lead and sulfuric acid to power the motor and give us the driving force of the car.” Next semester, Stewman and his colleagues will enter the car in a regional competition, with hopes to place at the national level. After graduating, he plans to apply the knowledge he learned here to his career.

“I’d like to work for the cereal industry,” he said. “As a chemical engineer, I would determine how to turn raw materials into useful substances ... With cereal, I’d be getting the grain and transforming it in a variety of ways.” Like Stewman, junior Billy Landowski is working toward an engineering degree. His focus, computer engineering, has provided him with a lot of unique opportunities in the past year.

“Over the summer, I had a seven-week internship with Intel,” Landowski said. “It was a great experience to actually be in the industry and apply many of the things that I’ve been learning in the classroom. As part of the internship, I was on an evaluation team that tested a new computer chip. I also worked in a lab performing tests and collecting data that the engineers could use to improve their yield on this product.” This year, Landowski was selected to be a Boeing Scholar and will be working with a group of people from different majors next year to solve a real world problem. This project will substitute for his senior design project, a mandatory graduation requirement.

“Our team will get to work with mentors as well as Boeing employees,” Landowski said. “The project will take two semesters to complete.” Ashley Braford, a senior materials science and engineering major, works as an undergraduate researcher for the material science department and as an officer in the Society of Women Engineers, in addition to her full load of classes.

“The Society of Women Engineers club is a national organization,” Braford said. “On our campus, we’re concerned with helping other freshman and sophomore engineering majors. During those two years, a lot of girls decide to drop out of the program since a lot of the classes they have to take don’t really relate to their major. Our goal is to help those girls stay by helping them with homework and providing them with advice about engineering.” The club also sponsors a dinner called “An Evening with Industry,” which takes place in the spring.

“Alumni engineering majors are invited to come and talk to the girls about what they do now and what it’s like to work in the industry,” Braford said. “They also talk about how many of the required college courses apply to real life.” After she graduates from college, Braford hopes to work for NASA.

“There are tons of career opportunities with materials science engineering,” Braford said. “Some of these opportunities range from working with car companies to help create a safer body design to working with NASA on aircrafts that go to space.” Braford doesn’t just “sit around and read a book about engineering and science classes all day,” she said.

“I want people to know that we’re not a bunch of zombies,” she said. “I’ve definitely pulled a couple all-nighters this year and have gone to class with no sleep, but I still make time to hang out with friends and go to football and basketball games.”