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| Sue Rodriguez, seated at left, Selena
Whitfield, seated at right, and Chanelle
Coble, graduates of the Math and Science
for Minority Students summer program at
Phillips Andover, were TAs there last
summer. |
Sue Rodriguez didn’t understand English
when she came to New York City from the Dominican
Republic as a kid in 1990. But she learned
fast. Soon she was doing extremely well, not
only in her bilingual courses but also in
science and math.
So well, in fact, that in 1993, ‘94 and
‘95, she spent her high school summers
at the Math and Science for Minority Students
– (MS)2 – program at Phillips Andover
Academy (Andover, MA), a private boarding
school.
(MS)2 was founded in 1977 by Phillips Andover,
with help from the William Randolph Hearst
Foundation and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation.
The program’s mission is to encourage
minority students to aim toward careers in
technology and the sciences. Since (MS)2 began,
more than 600 grads have gone on to college.
Many received full scholarships, and more
than 100 were welcomed into Ivy League schools.
In a typical (MS)2 summer, the halls and classrooms
at Phillips Andover are filled with African
American, Hispanic and Native American kids.
They’re enjoying each other’s company,
and excited about their chance at a promising
technical career path. It’s a future
that might not have occurred to them until
they joined the summer program.
Brown and beyond
(MS)2 gave Rodriguez the confidence to move
into advanced placement high school courses,
she says. And that took her on to Brown University
(Providence, RI), where she earned her ME
degree in May 2000 – the first college
degree in her family.
Rodriguez loved engineering, but she was
also pretty sure she would like teaching.
So she decided to follow the advice of several
engineering mentors. They suggested that she
should make a short-term trial of teaching
before she set out to land an engineering
job.
So in the summer of 2000 Rodriguez happily
returned to Andover. She contributed to (MS)2
as a TA, then stayed on for the regular school
year, teaching pre-calculus to Andover students.
She ended her stint of giving back with another
(MS)2 summer in 2001.
Colleagues
Rodriguez was joined as a TA by two other
(MS)2 alums, Selena Whitfield and Chanelle
Coble. Whitfield is a 2001 ChE grad of Florida
A&M University (Tallahassee, FL), and
Coble graduated from Rutgers University (New
Brunswick, NJ) in 2001 with a degree in biomedical
engineering.
All three women remember themselves as
being just as focused as today’s (MS)2
interns. They encourage the current crop to
be open to new and unexpected interests. For
example, they suggest that when they get to
college, they should take a variety of courses
in fields far removed from their engineering
and science curricula.
Rodriguez seriously considered a dance
major at Brown, and taught African dance as
well as math at Andover. Coble took courses
in photography and theater, and plans to travel
before continuing her studies in grad school.
Whitfield is headed in a direction she
didn’t anticipate when she started college.
She’ll be working for management consultants
McKinsey & Co (Chicago, IL). “I’m
glad I majored in ChE because it taught me
to think critically and solve problems,”
she says. “Then I realized I didn’t
want to do straight engineering work. But
I may well end up working with engineering
clients.”
Balance and help
The fact that none of these talented young
women went directly from college into engineering
jobs probably doesn’t surprise (MS)2
organizers. The program expects its students
to maintain balance in their lives, beginning
with their summers at (MS)2.
Mornings are dedicated to math and science.
First year students study algebra and biology,
in second year it’s precalculus and chemistry,
and by third year the scholars are into statistics
and physics.
Afternoon begins with an English course
or college counseling. Then the students enjoy
physical activities like running, dance or
soccer. At night there are help sessions with
the TAs.
“It’s hard for some students to
take advantage of the help sessions at first.
They’re used to being the top students
in their classes in their schools back home,”
Rodriguez notes with a smile.
“When I was an (MS)2 intern, the sessions
taught me to seek help when I needed it. That
was very important to me at Brown, where I
came in without a lot of the C programming
work other kids had in high school. My (MS)2
experience made it easier for me to ask for
help – and I needed a lot of it my first
year.”
Getting along
All three women remember the social benefits
of (MS)2 with pleasure. “I was very shy
when I came here,” says Whitfield, who
grew up in Skokie, IL and went to a small
private high school. “Being here, away
from home for the first time, exposed me to
people from different regions and opened my
eyes to issues affecting minority populations
other than African Americans.”
For Coble, “(MS)2 made me more tolerant
of people with different religions and points
of view. I’m planning to visit a friend
I made here who lives in Korea. I’d never
have had that opportunity if I’d stayed
home.”
Rodriguez remembers best her struggle to
understand what her fellow students were saying.
Actually, it was the informal conversation
outside the classroom that helped her become
really fluent in English. “They had no
idea what was going on with me,” she
says. “They just thought I had a cute
accent.”
Looking ahead
Regardless of their career plans, the women
are grateful that (MS)2 guided them toward
engineering.
“You can’t step outside your
house, or even be in your house, without thinking
about mechanical engineering,” says Rodriguez.
“I tend to look at things like my kitchen
blender with an eye to how they behave. I
sit in a chair and think how much load I’d
have to put on it before it collapses.
“I still remember going to lunch after
my behavior of materials class. I was pouring
milk and suddenly I thought, “This is
fluid mechanics!’”
Her knowledge has put her off roller coasters,
she admits. “I used to love them, but
now I realize the probability of failure is
really high, especially with the dynamic of
movement. I haven’t been on one in five
years.”
Whitfield says she knew she’d major
in chemical engineering even before college.
“I didn’t know much about ChE but
I knew it involved the application of chemistry
and I always loved chemistry. Maybe I’ll
end up in petroleum sector consulting.”
Coble reveals that she’s “definitely
interested” in the medical aspect of
biomedical engineering. “I’m very
big on research. I’ll be trying to bridge
research and public health – biostatistics,
epidemiology, origins of disease – but
always applying engineering tactics.”
Rodriguez, Coble and Whitfield have grown
– through the (MS)2 program, and through
the college engineering studies it led them
to. Now they’ve found big rewards in
sharing their insights with tomorrow’s
crop of bright engineering students
D/C
Lisa Furlong is a freelance writer in
Center Harbor, NH.
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