She points to the accomplishment of William Kamkwamba ’14, who built a windmill that brought electricity to his impoverished village in Malawi. While lacking access to math and science classes, “William forged his own path to engineering,” May writes.
“While I agree that math and science are important tools for engineers and a way for us to attract many students to engineering (in fact, my love for math is what drew me to engineering), I can’t help but wonder how many students we are losing along this narrow path; students with weak backgrounds in math and science (from developing countries or poor communities), or students who simply don’t find math and science classes interesting and thus dismiss engineering as a career,” she writes.
May is a Dartmouth Public Voices fellow.
Read the full opinion piece, published 3/11/14 by The Huffington Post.
