3 minute read
Have you seen magic?
The question seemed unusual, especially coming from someone whose daily life revolves around the very real world of engineering, but to academy instructor Arijit Banerjee, engineering is magic.
“Every day when I come to work, it’s like Disneyland,” Banerjee says.
The electrical and computer engineering (ECE) assistant professor spoke to 25 of the 300 Illinois teens visiting the University of Illinois campus June 24 to 28 as part of 4-H Illini Summer Academies.
Illinois 4-H provides the five-day college experience to help high school teens build relationships with U of I staff as the teens explore college majors and potential careers. This year, 16 campus departments collaborated with U of I Extension 4-H to offer hands-on learning activities. In addition to taking coursework, the participants stay in residence halls, explore campus, and discover many enrichment activities common to a college student’s life.
Professor Lynford Goddard coordinated the ECE activities, showing youth the breadth of the department, from basic circuits and optical elements to control theory and power grids. The instructors all speak passionately about their teaching and research roles at U of I.
Cooperating campus departments have 17 hours with the teens throughout the week. In addition to teaching about their areas of study, staff help the teens understand what it is like to be a college student, including helping them find places to eat lunch, showing them how to ride the bus, and encouraging them to spend time on the Quad. The academy experience is also a time for departments to recruit students one-on-one.
Illini Summer Academies creates a path to the university, says Alvarez Dixon, U of I Extension 4-H youth development specialist. “We know students who got their first introduction to the university during this time and later enrolled as college students.”
“I’ve had students in my college introductory microbiology courses who were my participants at previous 4-H Illini Summer Academies,” says Melissa Reedy, course instructor in the School of Molecular and Cellular Biology. Several past veterinary medicine academy participants have returned as vet med students, including 2017 graduate Nicole Thomas, who now practices veterinary medicine in southern Illinois, and current graduate student Justin Hohlen.
Dennis French, department head of veterinary clinical medicine, didn’t miss the opportunity to engage the academy teens as he demonstrated the finer points of trimming hooves. “It may not look glamorous,” French says, “but there is a sense of accomplishment to our work when we see animals who have struggled be able to walk correctly again.”
Other areas of study included applied health sciences and wellness, human development and family studies, aerospace engineering, dance and theater fashion, agricultural communications, animal sciences, anthropology, animal nutrition and pet food manufacturing, game design and digital art, beekeeping, and plant biology.
The Illinois 4-H Foundation provides financial support for Illini Summer Academies in the forms of scholarship and activity support.
by Judy Mae Bingman
Photo by Judy Mae Bingman
Photo by Judy Mae Bingman
Photo by Judy Mae Bingman
