On Saturday, February 21, students made their way to Clemson University for another session of Next Engineers Academy, and the energy in the room said it all. Cohort 3 is deep into their Choose Your Own Design Challenge, and it's becoming one of the most exciting parts of the program to watch unfold. The basic premise is simple: students team up and identify a real problem in the world around them and work to design something that could fix it.
Some are rethinking everyday problems, like finding faster, more efficient ways to dry clothes. Others are tackling something far more complex, designing ECG testing solutions that are more inclusive and accessible to people who are currently left out of the picture. Throughout the day, students huddled over their prototypes, talked through challenges, and pushed their ideas a little further than they had the week before.
Staff from FHI 360 and volunteers from GE Vernova were right there alongside them, not with all the answers, but with the guidance to help students find their own.
That's what makes Next Engineers so special. This is a chance for future engineers to stretch their wings and use everything they've learned over the past three years - the skills, the mindset, and the belief that they can design real solutions for the world.
