College of Science, Engineering and Technology

Multiple mini-interviews, aka MMIs, are like speed dating for the interview world. GCU pre-med students jumped into the University’s first mock multiple mini-interview session to help them hone their critical-thinking skills before beginning real MMIs as they apply to medical schools.

It was innovation on parade at the Engineering Building on Thursday, where dozens of computer science, computer programming and mechanical, electrical and biomedical students on about 35 teams presented their yearlong projects as part of the Engineering and Technology Capstone Showcase.

The idea for the April issue of GCU Magazine actually was hatched in 2015, when we told the stories of some of the incoming students in the Class of 2019. Now they’re graduating, and it was time to see what their four years were like. The answer: It was a head-spinning time of growth, both on campus and for the students themselves. This issue also features the University’s first graduates from its engineering program and its Students Inspiring Students initiative, a look at how GCU teaches computer programming differently, the heartwarming story of Jesse Dalla Riva‘s transformation from drug addict to graduate, and a My LopeLife piece by another 2019 grad. There’s more: what’s ahead for the GCU men’s basketball program, the increasingly important communication tool utilized by online instructors and students, and yet another heartwarming story — this one on recent GCU Hall of Fame inductee Sharky Baker. To read the digital version, click here.  

Hundreds of high school students on more than 40 teams descended Friday and Saturday on GCU Arena to compete in the Arizona West Regional FIRST Robotics Competition, where they unleashed their robots on the field of play. Their mission in the space-themed competition: Fill their spaceships with valuable payload using, of course, their robots. One group volunteering at the event was GCU’s Thunderbots. Said Thunderbots advisor Ed Koeneman, who teaches electrical engineering technology, “It’s important for high school students to see that college kids are continuing on in this fun world of robotics.”

Learning and Living Communities are designed for GCU freshmen who prefer to share a residence hall room, suite or floor with students of similar academic interests. Along with the connections they make organically, there are organized activities in Juniper Hall, the building housing six LLC’s: Honors, Colangelo College of Business (CCOB), College of Science, Engineering and Technology (CSET), psychology from the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHSS), and nursing and athletic training through the College of Nursing and Health Care Professions (CONHCP). “It has a different feel,” Kayla Warren said of her freshman year in Juniper. “It is academically centered, where we were all in the same mindset.”

Since January, GCU students have been busy in the engineering labs building a scaled-down version of a Formula 1 vehicle, though even before cutting one tube of steel, they spent about eight months designing the vehicle on a program called Solidworks. “This is really, really exciting for the University and the engineering program,” said Dr. Kevin Williams, who teaches mechanical engineering and is the faculty adviser for the 30-plus-member GCU Formula SAE Team. “It is the first time ever we at GCU are going to have a Formula vehicle built for competition.” The first-year team will see how their vehicle fares when they head to Nebraska in June for the Formula SAE Collegiate Design Series competition, going up against 79 other teams.

It was a science Saturday for fourth- through eighth-graders, who spent their Saturday morning making oobleck — an odd substance that acts like a liquid and a solid — building simple motors powered by batteries, deciphering code and programming robots. The workshop was organized by GCU’s Robotics Club in collaboration with K-12 Educational Development. About two dozen Thunderbots volunteered to work with the young students and foster their appreciation of science, technology, engineering and math at the club’s STEM Bonanza.

The College of Science, Engineering and Technology and the Honors College joined forces in 2018 to present the first CSET Research Symposium and Honors College Showcase “so that the audience can get a feel for a broader scope of research that goes on at GCU,” said Professor of Biological Sciences Dr. Galyna Kufryk. This year’s event featured hundreds of students across disciplines presenting their work — everything from augmented reality projects to the impact of college weight gain, the implications of curcumin in Alzheimer’s disease and a humanitarian project to help homeless women.

The GCU Robotics Club overcame a lot of challenges in the 2018-19 competition season — challenges that haven’t slowed down the club one bit. The Thunderbots are gearing up for their STEM Bonanza workshop on Saturday for fourth- through eighth-graders. They’ll be making oobleck, a slime-type substance that somehow acts as a liquid and a solid, and they’ll be unraveling codes with wheel cyphers. The Thunderbots are also getting ready to volunteer at the big FIRST Robotics regional competition at GCU Arena April 5-6.

Washington High School senior Juan Ballez has watched his father struggle with mobility in his hand and, for years, wished there was a way he could help. Now, on the cusp of graduating, he thinks he knows a way — by becoming a biomedical engineer. His dream of helping people, like his father, came closer to fruition Tuesday at GCU, when he found out he was one of 43 students in the neighborhood surrounding GCU to receive the Students Inspiring Students scholarship. “It feels like a huge weight lifted off my shoulders,” said Juan after receiving the scholarship, which covers four years of tuition and books. “… I was determined. I was like, I can’t have my parents pay for it (college). I don’t want that burden on them.”