Missouri S&T by Cynthia Cahall.
As you walk down the sidewalks of Missouri S&T, you may notice a few differences between their campus and Maryville’s. The buildings, massive in comparison, are made of rather plain, washed out brick. Inside, many of the walls are white or mustard yellow, but don’t be too quick to judge. Rolla’s home college may not have the popping color scheme of the Saints or glittering windows, however, they do have some hidden gems. You’ll just have to take a closer look.
To help give us an inside look, we interviewed Andrew Shannon, a sophomore mathematics major at Missouri S&T. Shannon spent one and a half years at St. Charles Community College before transferring. “I just wanted to go to a school that had good academics and that had a respectable reputation,” Shannon said.
This semester, Shannon is loaded with science classes. “I have a physics class, two math classes, and a English class, and also an engineering class, like an engineering design class,” Shannon said.
Each building has a unique characteristic related to what subjects are taught inside it. The civil engineering building boasts exposed structural supports, the mechanical engineering building shows off the ductwork and plumbing, and the electrical building reveals the electrical wiring, although it is contained in glass, as engineers have a habit of playing with things they shouldn’t. As you walk down the halls you’ll often see signs warning you of radiation or lasers. Walking into the wrong classroom here may cause you a few more problems than a little embarrassment.
At Maryville you’ll find over 100 clubs like Connect and CRU. At Missouri S&T, you’ll find the spelunking and the geographical surveying club, but the most involved clubs are the design teams. “I really like all the design teams and stuff you can do. I think they’re really cool. There’s, like, a solar car and a Mars rover, solar house,” Shannon said. These clubs design and build things (find replacement word for things) and enter them into competitions.
As classes let out and students pour into the hallways you may notice the number, or lack there of, female students. Maryville has a ratio of 78 percent female and 22 percent male, while Missouri S&T is flipped, enrolling at a ratio of 77 percent male and 23 percent female.
Not only would you see an abundance of males, but also an abundance of scientific and technical minded people. “There’s a lot of people who are kind of nerdy here. I kind of picked up on that right away. It really sticks out. Nerdy. There’s a lot of nerds,” Shannon said about his first impression of Rolla.
Maryville has a focus on the medical field, especially in the areas of nursing, occupational therapy, and physical therapy. In Rolla it is a safe bet to guess a college student is enrolled for engineering. “I guess it’s like… there’s a lot nerdier people here and it’s very focused towards the STEM fields. Most people that go here are going to be engineers, so, fields like English and art are a lot smaller so you don’t see a lot of people in those majors,” Shannon said. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Shannon described a typical day for engineering students. “Usually it’s get up, go to the library, work on projects, and stuff and then maybe start studying for something that’s coming up. Obviously eat and stuff, go to classes,” Shannon said.
Shannon had been on a visit to our campus before for a chemistry test during high school. “The campus seemed really big, but that was probably because I was a high school student. If I went back now, it would seem a lot smaller. It was pretty empty and the particular professor that did our test, I remember him being very… It was very early in the morning and he was peppy and very energetic for it being that early in the morning,” Shannon said.
If Shannon could give himself some advice at the beginning of his enrollment in Missouri S&T he would have said, “Take it easy on classes at first and join more clubs.” After college he plans on finding a job in the St. Louis area. So while the two colleges may be very different in style, we all have the same end goal. Whether we are working on developing cobalt-base superalloys or the cure for cancer, we are all trying to prepare ourselves for a smooth transition into the working world.
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