It’s not like Christmas. No one counts the days until the engineers arrive at the high school. But students still look forward to the annual event.
If they wanted to count the days, they’d have to start with a low number, because math teacher Mike Flannery doesn’t give them much notice. He usually tells them a week in advance.
That’s what he did this year. He informed the students a few days before the guests arrived on Friday morning, Oct. 30. The visitors had a twofold mission — to make students aware of engineering opportunities, and to show them the relevance of what they’re learning in math..
Engineers visit other schools in the area, but the event seems to be larger in Cornwall than anywhere else. Last Friday, there were presentations in all 43 math classes.
Rahul Verma of Verma Engineering does most of the recruiting. He gets people from the Mid-Hudson Society of Engineers in addition to some interns and professors at West Point.
He got some help this year from Mr. Flannery, who lined up two former students. One of them, China Darin, took over her former teacher’s first period class.
Miss Darin graduated from Cornwall in 2008, a year before Engineering Day became a Cornwall tradition. She has a degree from Stevens Institute of Technology, and is now a technical director for Exxon Mobil.
Remembering her student days, Miss Darin prepared for the assignment by buying candy and creating a bingo game.
She also put together an introduction to power generation, and mentioned more than once that the subjects she took in college weren’t as difficult as she thought. “Thermodynamics just sounded scary,” she said. “I was disappointed in nuclear power; it wasn’t that complex.”
Mr. Flannery hopes to enlist the help of other alumni in the future. “We usually have a good mix of new presenters each year, as well as a few who participate every year. It’s all on a volunteer basis; so there’s no cost to the school district. The PTSO [Parent Teacher Student Organization] has been kind enough to donate breakfast and lunch to feed the engineers and cadets.”
