“I know one thing,” said mechanical engineering student Stefan McCall, “I like math.” Stefan’s love of math led him to explore the field of engineering. In high school he attended the Engineering Summer Academy and chose the mechanical engineering Solar Boat camp. He remembers the first time his team tested their boat in the pool at the HPER. “That was a pretty awesome feeling. When I saw it take off, I knew I’d made the right choice.”
Stefan is now a junior and a student in the Honors College. He is also involved in the Engineering Career Awareness program, a College of Engineering program that recruits and gives support to underrepresented students. ECAP has allowed Stefan to attend the U of A without putting a financial burden on his family, and he has made good friends through the program.
ECAP students are encouraged to participate in internships, and Stefan has definitely taken advantage of that opportunity. He has interned at Centerpoint Energy in Little Rock, where he helped analyze diagrams as the company transitioned from paper to computer records. The following summer, he had an internship with John Deere in Augusta Georgia, working on an engineering team at a tractor factory.
Stefan is also an active member of the National Society of Black Engineers, and he explained that this organization has helped him find internships and other opportunities. In 2013, Stefan attended the ExxonMobil Future Leaders Academy, where he toured the Exxon facilities, heard presentations from the company’s upper management, and had an opportunity to network with employers.
With so many future paths to choose from, Stefan is keeping an open mind about the future. He plans to keep doing internships, experience lots of different industries and find his passion—the career that will give him that same awesome feeling of watching a solar boat he helped design speeding through the water.