杏吧传媒

The founders of an immersive engineering camp at Cal State East Bay want to smooth the pathway for middle and high school students to higher education. Discover Engineering provides 62 students with a rigorous and valuable hands-on engineering experience focused on real-world issues. 

The students and eight teachers from across the East Bay are learning and collaborating to build autonomous vehicles and bridges while developing confidence, leadership, perseverance and resourcefulness. The six-day, five-night summer camp culminates on June 27, when teams will compete, testing the functionality and strength of their creations. The following day, the teams will present the results of their weeklong efforts to industry judges. 

“Our goal is several-fold,” said Farzad Shahbodaghlou, one of the camp’s founders. “We want to make going to college a serious possibility for the diverse, underrepresented high school students. We also want them to consider STEM fields, specifically engineering, for college. Finally, we want to introduce them to our very own successful Construction Management and Civil Engineering programs at CSUEB and the other majors in the School of Engineering.”

The campers, who are living in dorms this week, also toured the Hayward campus and met with local engineers at a roundtable event.