HOUGHTON – Getting started down the path toward a career in engineering can be challenging for students at urban schools, where engineering role models are rare and many students know little about the field.

“I didn’t know what an engineer was until I went to college,” said Terrianna Bradley, president of Michigan Tech’s student chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers.

That’s why she and nine other NSBE members will be spending their spring break visiting nine Detroit public schools, talking with older students about engineering opportunities and how to get started on those career paths, and sharing engineering concepts with younger students through hands-on activities.

The Tech students will be leaving Saturday, mechanical engineering graduate student Yomi Famuyiwa said at a trip organizational meeting Wednesday. They’ll be visiting a total of nine elementary and high schools March 7-9 before driving back to campus. It’ll be a busy schedule, he said, with each team of two to three NSBE members visiting two high schools each day before making an evening encore at an elementary school.

They’ll also take advantage of an educational experience of their own, visiting a Marathon oil refinery to learn about engineering jobs there. That opportunity comes thanks to second-year mechanical engineering student Rebecca Spencer, a Detroit-area native who came to Tech on a Marathon-sponsored scholarship that includes a summer job at the refinery.

“When people think of mechanical engineering, they think about the automotive industry, especially in Detroit,” Spencer said. “But there are a lot more opportunities, like refinery.”

Her hands-on experience at the refinery helped her realize what she’s capable of, she added, and she thinks it’s likely she’ll continue her career with Marathon after graduation.

Mechanical Engineering first-year student Matthew Alexander – one of three Detroit Cass Tech high school alumni making the trip – said he’s giving up his spring break down time “to give back to the community I started from.”

Spencer, who also made the trip last year, said she believes black urban students will be more likely embrace the engineering message when they hear it from college students that largely came from similar backgrounds.

“They see us on their level, see us as one of their own” she said. “We could have gone through the same things, and we’ve overcome that and can be a positive role model.”