According to the National Science Foundation Hispanics, African-Americans, and Native Americans only make up 6, 5, and less than 1 percent of the engineering workforce respectively. Engineering Your Future is a motion to change that by sparking the interest of underrepresented males in engineering at an early stage and allowing them to make the necessary decisions in high school to prepare for pursuing a science or engineering degree in college.

Engineering Your Future is a one-day hands-on conference for 8th-grade boys who are underrepresented in the field of engineering. The program is aimed at exposing students to role models in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). When young men have the opportunity to interact with engineering students and professional engineers who look like them, it opens their eyes to career possibilities that they may not have considered. Reaching boys at an early age allows them to make necessary decisions in high school to prepare for pursuing a STEM degree in college.

UConn’s student chapters of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), and Engineering Ambassadors (EA) lead this hands-on, interactive, and inspirational event.