CARIBOU — Caribou High School students Lance Lagasse, Shane Furber, Wyatt Taggett and Andrew Keller recently had an opportunity to tour the University of Maine’s engineering program in Orono and spent some time with PhD student Matt Fowler as he explained an average day as an engineer at the campus.
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Contributed photo Caribou High School students, from left, Andrew Keller and Wyatt Taggett, discuss the engineering profession with Hemant P. Pense, professor and department chair of the Chemical and Biological Engineering Department at the University of Maine, during their recent trip to Orono. |
The four were accompanied by their Maine Educational Talent Search (METS) adviser, Velma Murphy Graham. Though they had all participated in METS field trips in the past, including one to UM-Fort Kent’s campus, they were unanimously impressed when they stepped inside the lab at the Advanced Structures and Composite Center.
Wearing hardhats and safety goggles, the students began to learn that the world of engineering covers a huge variety of fields. Though they may be used to the quiet forests and potato fields of Caribou, the buzz of campus seemed just as exciting as the possibility of success as an engineer. It could be as soon as their freshman year at the University of Maine that the Caribou students join those working on these important projects.
Fowler assured them that there is always enough work to go around on these complicated and innovative designs, even for freshmen. He demonstrated projects that ranged from a massive Kevlar/fiberglass composite parachute that will be used by NASA, to bulletproof walls designed for use in U.S. Army tents in Afghanistan.
The tour’s grand finale was a demonstration of the College of Engineering’s newest and most exciting feature, a huge wave pool that will be used to test designs for offshore wind power.
When asked about his impression of the program, Furber, a junior, said, “I want to get done with high school. The idea of college becomes more real after seeing these projects. I would recommend everyone to come see this.”
Although not seniors yet, these students are already feeling pressure to plan for the future. They are becoming more aware of the struggling economy and lack of opportunities they may face with only a high school diploma. Luckily, Talent Search has had a presence in Caribou for 38 years.
METS is a federally funded program designed to encourage, advise and assist high school students to gain college access. It is designed to encourage more young people to set high academic expectations, stay in school, study hard, and take the courses needed to prepare them for college-level studies.
Graham believes the earlier the boys start to pursue a postsecondary education, the more likely it will be that they advance and conquer that ambition. She has been working with most of these students for two years. She plays to her students’ strengths and will always jump at a chance to show them all that college has to offer.
She hopes to take many more groups of students down to Orono in the future, as she has already done for hundreds of Aroostook County high school students.
If the boys should change their minds about entering the engineering field, there are always marketing, finance, distribution and other work to help Maine and the world at large to benefit from these projects.
Although the four visitors from Caribou aren’t quite ready to declare their majors, they returned home a few steps closer to accomplishing their dreams of success.
