Students from Mercer Island High School in Washington recently stepped beyond the classroom and onto the Boeing 737 production floor — an experience made possible through Engineering Tomorrow’s collaboration with MIT's Leaders for Global Operations and industry partners.

Engineering Tomorrow helped prepare the 30 ninth-grade students for the tour with an aerospace lab and virtual session introducing key engineering concepts and career pathways. Working through an Engineering Tomorrow lab first ensured that students arrived ready to understand what they were seeing and how it connected to their own futures.

“We want to inspire students by exposing them to professional engineers to illustrate the pathways for them to be problem-solvers in society,” said Alex Dickson, Engineering Tomorrow program coordinator. “The demand for engineers has just gone up dramatically. We try to illustrate to students that there are many pathways into these careers.”

At Boeing’s Renton facility, students toured the factory floor, spoke with engineers across disciplines, and witnessed large-scale aircraft production in action. For many, the experience transformed engineering from an abstract idea into a tangible, achievable career path.

Read the full MIT News story here →