My name is Michael Pittman. I’m a first year student here at SMU from Denton, TX where I attended Denton Ryan High School (Go Raiders!). My major is in Engineering Management Science which is essentially a hybrid degree between engineering and business.
First off, SMU is an amazing place to be. Newsweek recently ranked us as the 11th happiest campus in the nation and with good reason. The campus is beautiful, the food is amazing, and the professors REALLY know what they’re talking about.
There are tons of opportunities that the Lyle School of Engineering offers. To be completely honest, I could tell you so much about the small classes, beautiful buildings and friendly people here at the SMU. And while that is true, there is so much more than that. As a freshman, I’m already seeing my calculus problems in action as a part of my freshman design project. In this class, I am currently working in a group to build a remote controlled robot with a catapult system.
As I write this, I am only a few weeks into my time at SMU, so I don’t know everything, but the professors at SMU guide you while your labs builds camaraderie with people that you’ll be with for the next four years.
While the opportunities in the classroom are great, the opportunities outside the classroom are just as amazing, if not more so. The Hart Center for Engineering Leadership held a career fair last week known as Engineering Connections. Here I met with several different companies, gave them my high school resume (which was fine since I’m a freshman), and connected with some very important people. To put it into perspective, TD Industries is an award-winning corporation & the largest mechanical construction company in the South. As a freshman at Engineering Connections, I didn’t talk to a representative from the company—I talked to Harold MacDowell, the CEO of TD Industries. In addition, I spoke with Jerry Braun, the president of Texas Airsystems, the company that has been the leading manufacturer of HVAC equipment in Texas for over 30 years.
While other universities tell you about the opportunities you could have as a sophomore, junior, and senior, the Lyle School of Engineering gets you plugged into corporate America before your very first midterm. If you are someone who truly wants to work hard, who truly wants to be successful, and who truly wants to be associated with big name people, there is not a better place to be, than in the heart of Dallas at SMU’s Lyle School of Engineering.