To whom it may concern, I am writing to express my endorsement of the BUILD program. As a former student of Jerry’s in a postgraduate setting, I cannot emphasize enough how impactful this type of education was to me and how impactful it would have been during my undergraduate years

I completely agree with the BUILD philosophy that an engineering education needs more hands-on and project-based learning. I think the most valuable part of the undergraduate education that I did receive was my internships and co-ops, closely followed by extracurricular project work. However, I had to go far out of my way to get those opportunities, and I would have loved it if it were built into the curriculum

Additionally, I wasn't taught anything about the manufacturing process in school. As an electrical engineer, learning how printed circuit boards are actually fabricated in Jerry's training gave me a much better appreciation for how to properly design them so that they could be manufactured, which made me much more effective as an engineer

As an electrical engineer, I had very limited exposure to multidisciplinary teams in school. But under Jerry’s guidance, I worked alongside mechanical engineers every day. In doing so I picked up some basic skills and vocabulary from them, which allowed me to communicate with them more effectively. I’ve since learned that no problem in industry is limited to a single engineering discipline. Working at a startup now, on any given day I'll work with several different types of engineers, designers, quality controllers, manufacturers, and even non-technical personnel such as our finance team, lawyers, and executives. I think my most effective colleagues today are ones that can communicate and contribute across domain boundaries

Finally, in the Overview of the BUILD Program it’s written that ”We need to be teaching how to learn, not how to do a specific task”. I couldn’t agree more; there's not been a single day in the workforce that I didn't have to learn something new. Again, my most effective colleagues are the ones who are capable of teaching themselves new skills in order to complete a task, rather than giving up because that task is not aligned with their background

For these reasons I couldn’t be more excited about the BUILD program, and hope it moves forward

Sincerely, Alissa S