In early November, ESD hosted eight students from a high school on the south side of Chicago to shadow the engineers and learn more about the industry. The students, currently enrolled in a college prep class at their high school, have expressed interest in the engineering profession.
Members of ESD staff led a morning of introductions headed up by Kurt Karnatz, President. Afterwards, the students were given the opportunity to conduct small interviews with ESD employees: Kyle Hendricks, Andraya Parrish, Andrew Leicht, Sid Ghosh, and Julia Ingersoll. They were then given an office tour, followed by an AutoCAD/Revit activity providing hands on experience with engineering software taught by the IT team: Mayank Sharma, Eric Olson, and Scott Stokes. The event closed with lunch while Michael Kern, Senior Vice President, Human Resources, explained scholarship programs that ESD offers to benefit high school students with a solid ACT score.
About a week later, ESD received thank-you cards from each student expressing their gratitude for the opportunity. One student wrote, ?I learned a lot and had lots of fun, especially building a room. The information I learned made me really want to become an engineer.? Another stated, ?I really had fun and learned a lot. I also love how everyone was realistic with the advice they gave and so down-to-earth.? Aliza Skolnik organized the event, and said that she felt, ?the students had a fantastic time and found the interviews informative as well as interesting. Not only did they learn from us, but through our honest and open discussion, we were able to learn from them as well. The students truly enjoyed themselves, especially while learning Revit, and I think it opened their eyes to the possibilities out there for them.?
