Since starting my mentorship, my perception has changed as I've gained perspective on how much it takes to keep the students engaged. With so many students of so many different backgrounds and interests, it can be a real challenge to engage them into the content. With engineering, I feel that there is a subject or area for anyone with a desire to create. However, in a larger class and younger students, it can be a challenge to tailor the content and curriculum to indivual students. I've seen that my mentor's solution to this is to teach everyone the content, but allow them apply it in their own way through projects that are open to creativity. I was surprised and really impressed to see the kinds of ideas students came up with when they participate in projects that allow them to think outside the box. Of course, some students put forth very little effort in their class and projects, but the majority are very invested in the class and come up with really interesting ideas when given the chance.
As rewarding as my experiences with my internship have been, not every minute of it is super exciting. I've seen that in order to create an enriching student experience, there is a lot of work that must go in behind the scenes. In engineering classes, the students work with professional programs like adobe illustrator. In order for them to complete their projects, I've had to help them trouble shoot problems that I wasn't even one hundred percent sure how to fix. In addition, all of the projects, tests, and quizes for each class must be graded which can be very time consuming. Despite some of the more tedious aspects, all of these things are worth it to see the students excell and be able to learn about such intersting topics.
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