When engineering student Sophia Pham ’25 interned at DoorDash in Seattle, Washington, she found she had to simplify how she described her work to colleagues in design, project management and marketing areas.

“They didn’t speak engineering language,” Pham said. “They talked business language, designer language, so we needed to easily explain to them how things work, because our work is complicated to explain.”

Honing that skill was the focus of Engineering Communications, a spring 2024 course where Pham and her classmates spent the semester talking with teens who are members of 4-H about engineering, math, science and tech (STEM) topics. This fall, engineering students taking the course are translating their work for young people and adults in the Syracuse Police Athletic/Activities League.

“Previous students have told me that during their internships, they found it challenging to communicate their expertise to their supervisors and colleagues who had no engineering background,” said Hua Wang, senior lecturer in the Cornell Engineering Communications Program, who teaches the Engineering Communications course. “I wanted to give students an opportunity translate their engineering expertise, make it accessible and understandable to audiences with little or no engineering knowledge – and prepare them for future success in the workplace.”

She found a partner in Jamila Walida Simon, civic engagement specialist for New York State 4-H, housed in the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research and part of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Simon saw an opportunity to introduce 4-H youth to STEM education and career paths, while also giving Wang’s students the experience they needed.

They met after Simon presented at a Community Partnership event held by the Einhorn Center for Community Engagement.

“Wang invited me to collaborate on an initiative with her to ensure her students could begin to build healthy habits of translating their knowledge to different audiences,” Simon said.

Added Wang: “It’s very challenging for engineering students to communicate their expertise, especially to young kids.” Both of them received funding from the Einhorn Center for the initiative. 

To prepare, Wang asked engineering students, especially those with siblings, how they would explain what they’d learned to someone who was about 14 or 15 years old. The students formed teams, and created presentations that they would show via Zoom to 29 4-H teens every Friday.

“In the first session, the students focused on their own experience and their knowledge or expertise,” said Wang. “Some of the 4-H’ers sat there and it wasn’t an enjoyable experience.”

That feedback led to more engaging presentations. The engineering students presented their projectsin plain language, visually explained how they worked, and asked 4-H’ers for solutions to certain problems they might encounter.

“One team had a robot car and they asked the kids how they could make the car move left or right. Another team asked the kids how to code specific steps for a game they were creating,” said Wang. “This improved the engagement level and made it enjoyable for everyone.”

Pham’s group started with an icebreaker to engage the 4-H’ers from the start. Then they gave an overview of Pham’s previous internships and the work she has done as a software engineering student, including at a startup. Pham said software engineers are likely to gravitate toward entrepreneurship as they tend to build new products; she was heartened by how many 4-H’ers had thought about becoming entrepreneurs.

“A lot of them are thinking of starting their own business or own company in the future,” Pham said. “When I was their age, I never thought of something like that, so some kids are thinking about this at an early age now.”

Pham also does work in machine learning and AI; she was impressed with how much the 4-H’ers knew about the technologies, including how they power self-driving vehicles, like Teslas.

“They actually understand how the Teslas see the world,” Pham said. “I showed them how it works behind the scenes, how the car uses radar while it moves and it draws a 3D model of the surrounding atmosphere so it knows where to go.”

Pham is applying the lessons learned to her work at Cornell. She’s currently on a project team and works with sub-teams who focus on areas such as marketing, project management and design.

“We practice how to simplify concepts on a daily basis,” said Pham. “Thanks to this initiative, I had a chance to practice on a different audience.”

Juan Vazquez-Leddon is communications director for the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research.