Engineering Academy Summer Program sparks curiosity in regional high school students

NEW PALTZ — The Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the State University of New York at New Paltz is host to an introductory program that allows high school students to earn three college-level credits in engineering.

For two weeks – beginning on July 10 – students in the New Paltz Engineering Academy Summer Program traveled to campus to learn about computers, information technology, semiconductors and emerging technologies. They attended lectures led by New Paltz engineering instructor Michael Otis and conducted supervised experiments in Resnick Engineering Hall laboratories. They also learned from visiting engineering professionals, such as New Paltz alumna Alma Jaze, who works in the Electromagnetic Compatibility Group at IBM.

The program concludes with group presentations by the students on Friday, July 21.

On July 14, the students visited the Panasonic Plasma Display Laboratory in Highland, where the company’s vice president and co-founder, Everton Henriques – also a New Paltz alum – illustrated some of the digital video concepts they had learned in class that morning.

In its first year, the program has attracted 17 students from Ulster, Dutchess and Orange counties. Students like Nyla Naim, an 11th-grader at Franklin D. Roosevelt High School in Hyde Park.

“I’ve always been interested in science and math, and I’ve heard about engineering, but I didn’t really know what they (engineers) do,” she said. “It’s interesting and a lot of work.”