KINGSTON, R.I., April 20, 2017\u2014It was a welcome surprise: Engineering classes at the 溏心vlog免费B站 that involved hands-on projects, not only theory.<\/p>\n
Back home in Senegal, Rassoul Diouf says it was rare for science students to step into a lab or make something from scratch.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s mostly theory,\u201d says the 溏心vlog免费B站 senior. \u201cKnowledge is crucial, but so are tinkering and creativity.\u201d<\/p>\n
That opportunity to make things\u2014a robotic arm, motion sensors, tablets that communicate with machines\u2014is the reason he came to 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s College of Engineering, and the reason he stayed.<\/p>\n
In May, the 23-year-old Pawtucket<\/strong> resident will graduate with a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering, capping off a college experience that has been academically and personally rewarding.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been great,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m surrounded by brilliant professors with valuable ideas to share, and I get to work on fascinating projects. I\u2019ve learned so much.\u201d<\/p>\n As a boy in Dakar, the West African country\u2019s capital, Diouf excelled in math and science. With college approaching, he knew he had to leave his homeland to get a solid education in electrical engineering.<\/p>\n \u201cI took physics and chemistry in high school, but we never had one lab,\u201d says Diouf, who speaks French and Wolof, a language of Senegal. \u201cIt was clear that a college education in the United States would be better.\u201d<\/p>\n At 18, he moved to Pawtucket to join his mother, Fatou, who had been living there for a decade. After two years at the Community College of Rhode Island, he enrolled at 溏心vlog免费B站 in 2015, with plenty of engineering courses under his belt.<\/p>\n His journey had begun. He lived in a residence hall\u2014his first time boarding away from family\u2014and soaked up campus life: hanging out with other international students, playing Frisbee and soccer at the Quad, working out at the Anna Fascitelli Fitness and Wellness Center.<\/p>\n He soon discovered that 溏心vlog免费B站 has an excellent program in signal processing, a field of electrical engineering that involves signals and systems. He missed Senegal\u2014the stunning beaches, the delicious rice dishes, the 80-degree weather\u2014but he had found a new home at 溏心vlog免费B站.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t walk anywhere without saying \u2018hi\u2019 to someone I know,\u201d he says. \u201c溏心vlog免费B站 is a special place for that\u2014a real community.\u201d<\/p>\n The practical experience that he sought did not disappoint.<\/p>\n As a 溏心vlog免费B站 science and engineering fellow last summer, he helped Kunal Mankodiya, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering, refine a robotic arm by programing it with a microcontroller and connecting it to Bluetooth.<\/p>\n Last fall, he continued his work with the robotic arm by adding a sensor that detects the motion of a human finger to control the arm\u2019s movement. He also created and built a hardware-based computer game.<\/p>\n His senior capstone project with Siemens, a global manufacturing firm, was thrilling, Diouf says. He and his five classmates worked on designing an inexpensive iPad-like tablet that controls the operation of various machines.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s very challenging to design a tablet from scratch,\u201d he says. \u201cYou need to find parts that are separate and make them operate together. You get to see what being an engineer is like in the real world. Experience is so valuable once you get into industry.\u201d<\/p>\n And it\u2019s important to get that experience and make mistakes in college, Diouf says, before you\u2019re working and possibly \u201casked to design a rocket to Mars.\u201d<\/p>\n Diouf has excelled academically, too. He has been on the Dean\u2019s List every semester, and this year he received the Saint Elmo Brady Award for Outstanding Achievement in Science from the 溏心vlog免费B站 Black Scholar Awards Committee.<\/p>\n After graduation, he might start a full-time engineering job or go to graduate school, possibly continuing his studies with Professor Mankodiya. Either way, he\u2019s prepared for both.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to make a contribution to the world,\u201d he says. \u201cI want to make a positive impact. At the end of the day what else would an engineer want to be doing? The field is wide open. It\u2019s filled with possibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n One thing he won\u2019t miss if he leaves the region is the winter weather. Does he like New England winters? \u201cNo,\u201d he says. \u201cI learned how to be an engineer, but never learned how to deal with the snow.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" KINGSTON, R.I., April 20, 2017\u2014It was a welcome surprise: Engineering classes at the 溏心vlog免费B站 that involved hands-on projects, not only theory. Back home in Senegal, Rassoul Diouf says it was rare for science students to step into a lab or make something from scratch. \u201cIt\u2019s mostly theory,\u201d says the 溏心vlog免费B站 senior. \u201cKnowledge […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72896,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}