Look­ing at Math and En­gi­neer­ing Ma­jors Be­yond Bethel

MISHAWAKA—Here is a spe­cial edi­tion of grad­u­ate school tips, this one for math and en­gi­neer­ing ma­jors. This edi­tion is a lit­tle dif­fer­ent be­cause it will look at the tran­si­tion for en­gi­neer­ing ma­jors from Bethel to Notre Dame or Trine, then their tran­si­tion from that school into the work force. For the math ma­jors, there will be a brief dis­cus­sion of post-un­der­grad­u­ate op­tions and some gen­eral study rec­om­men­da­tions.  

For en­gi­neer­ing ma­jors, the first thing Sherri Campeau, M.S., wanted to point out is the dif­fer­ence be­tween Notre Dame and Bethel cul­ture. Prepar­ing for the cul­ture shock of hav­ing to dig one’s heels in will ben­e­fit an en­gi­neer­ing stu­dent greatly. Campeau rec­om­mend look­ing into the Civil En­gi­neer­ing de­gree at Notre Dame where stu­dents get to go on trip.  

“Stu­dents have the best of both worlds. They get to be at Bethel, where we have com­mu­nity and [we’re] Christ-cen­tered,” Campeau said. “They get be in­volved in…all the things that come with be­ing in­volved at a smaller col­lege. And then [they] go to Notre Dame and take ad­van­tage of their re­sources.” 

Campeau ap­pre­ci­ates the alumni and job op­por­tu­ni­ties at Notre Dame. Campeau says their net­work is amaz­ing es­pe­cially for stu­dents in­volved in the en­gi­neer­ing pro­grams. She en­cour­ages en­gi­neer­ing stu­dent to get in­tern­ships even in their first year of learn­ing at Bethel as it will set stu­dents up for the long run. The in­tern­ship a stu­dent may get in their fresh­man year could be the job they end up work­ing for when they grad­u­ate from Notre Dame or Trine. Campeau says she is ex­cited about job place­ment af­ter grad­u­a­tion for these en­gi­neer­ing stu­dents.  

Campeau rec­om­mends find­ing a net­work in which you can work for en­gi­neer­ing and good sum­mer jobs to give stu­dents bet­ter op­por­tu­ni­ties in the fu­ture. She said Bethel is work­ing on an agree­ment with an­other school for on­line school­ing for en­gi­neer­ing stu­dents that could open new ma­jors for en­gi­neer­ing stu­dents in­ter­ested in ge­o­log­i­cal stud­ies.  

Al­ice Ramos, Ph.D., had some prac­ti­cal tips when it came to seek­ing higher ed­u­ca­tion or when stu­dents find them­selves on the job field with a math ed­u­ca­tion de­gree. She said there are many op­por­tu­ni­ties for a math ma­jor to di­ver­sify them­selves. There is a de­gree called data sci­ence where one could ex­plore math more through St. Mary’s as a 4/​1 pro­gram and one could get a mas­ter’s, or they could earn their Ph.D. and work at uni­ver­sity, teach­ing math.  

The tips Ramos ex­plored were get­ting more ac­quainted with how one learns. She rec­om­mends learn­ing the struc­tures of some­thing rather than try­ing to get the right an­swers.  

“The trick is…as you work your way through, that you re­ally fo­cus in on in­ter­nal­iz­ing all the log­i­cal con­cepts of math­e­mat­ics,” Ramos said. 

When it comes to proofs, the con­cepts will help a great deal. She rec­om­mends that when one hits a wall, they find a way to dig in and to learn to teach the con­cept to them­selves, be­ing able to ex­plain con­cepts to oth­ers and them­selves. 

“No­ta­tion is im­por­tant be­cause math is a lan­guage,” Ramos said. “If you learn to speak it well . . . you will find that no­ta­tion will speak back. It will tell you what to do next.” 

Ramos be­lieves math is good at talk­ing back when one talks it through, learn­ing the con­cept that way.