Students spent spring breaks engineering solutions

Bryson Brading had been to Alaska before this March, but not like this.

From March 9-19, Brading and nearly a dozen other students traveled across the country to assist in Alaska’s Hoonah public schools, learn about Native Alaskan culture and explore the traditions of the Tglinit people. The trip was one of several offered through NC State’s Alternative Service Break Experiences.

“I grew up with four siblings, always babysitting, and I like to volunteer at the Boys and Girls Club, so that’s what drew me specifically to the Alaska trip,” Brading said.

As a sophomore computer science major with a passion for service, the Alaska trip was one of the first times Brading realized the two could connect.

“Being there as a computer science major, I realized it’s important to make access to a great education available for all,” Brading said. “Just having access to a computer. It made me realize that was something I might want to go into, the education side of computer science.”

These Alternative Service Break (ASB) trips are offered each year to any and all students, including those pursuing a master’s degree or Ph.D. Hayley Richardson is a fourth-year Ph.D. student in materials science and engineering and knows she wants to explore a career in higher education after graduation.

”Science outreach and getting kids excited about science is really important to me,” she said. “I was working in a fourth grade class, so definitely not college level rigor, but we got to do a lesson about using nature to inspire engineering designs.”

On the other side of the U.S., students like junior electrical engineering major Mario Rosas Nava volunteered at Give Kids The World Village and the Ronald McDonald House in Orlando, Fla. The Village, as it’s known, hosts critically ill children and their families for a week-long trip. It is run mostly by volunteers.

Mario Rosas Nava, right, with child she met during her alternative service break.

Rosas Nava and others in the program did everything from serving breakfast and bussing tables to operating small rides to serving sweet treats out of the ice cream truck.

“(Make-A-Wish Foundation) families and volunteers from all over the U.S. and the world come to visit the village,” Rosas Nava said. “Most of the volunteers are retired and they taught us a lot about their experiences and what they learned. They’re great to work alongside. We learned a lot about how the joy of this trip makes a lasting difference for families.

Group of students participating in an alternative service break pose for a photo.

“Now that I’m back, I feel like I’m more aware,” he added. “Just because someone looks healthy does not mean that they are not facing challenges. I should always have an attitude toward understanding. We often judge before knowing the full story.”

Students also traveled outside of the U.S. Hannah Dickerson, a junior chemical and biomolecular engineering student, journeyed to the Dominican Republic to work with Servicio Para la Paz, or Service for Peace. The students’ main goal on that trip was to build 17 different water harvest systems for families without running water.

One of the many residences serviced by students during their Alternative Service Break.

“We spent all day in their houses, building relationships, making connections,” she said.

Dickerson is currently a Grand Challenges Scholar, one of the requirements of which is completing a challenge based on five competencies: talent, multidisciplinary, entrepreneurship, multicultural, and social consciousness. Dickerson’s challenge is providing access to clean water.

“This trip sounded like the perfect way to use my engineering skill set to give back to a community,” she said.

A group of dancers dressed in colorful costumes perform in a town square in the Dominican Republic.

Students spent the majority of the trip in El Batey. On their day off, they toured the town and listened to community leaders speak.

“On the last day we threw a pool party for the town and we cooked them hotdogs,” added Rachel Sides, a junior biomedical engineering student. “That was probably my favorite day because I felt really accepted and part of the community.”

Alternative Service Break students enjoy time in the pool with residents of the Dominican Republic.

The importance of community seemed a theme for all of the students. First-year biomedical engineering student Abby Mulry found, like Sides, that community was vital to the trip, but not just the community they stayed with in the Dominican Republic.

“The community within ASB is unlike anything I’d been a part of before,” Mulry said. “The connections I’d been able to make with the friends I’d traveled with, most of whom I’d never spoken to before, those are friendships I think will last a lifetime.”

For more information on the Alternative Service Break Experiences, check out sle.dasa.ncsu.edu/asb-experiences.

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This post was originally published in College of Engineering News.

Published in News.