Using the skills of your major is not the only way to help through MSOE. MSOE also offers a network to help students get involved, as seven students who traveled to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina discovered.
"All you could see was devastated houses," student Kathy Rasmussen said. "And it hit me, the scope of what had happened. It wasn't like a tornado ripping through one neighborhood. It was everywhere."
Over five days the students knocked down walls, carried out furniture, tore out insulation, ripped out dead shrubs and grass and cleaned 15 houses that hurricane Katrina and broken levees had devastated.
Despite the ruin and loss, hope persevered, buoyed by the small joys they could bring to survivors, as Rasmussen pointed out, explaining that she found a photo album that had been spared by the flood waters, and was able to give it to the owner, who thought all of his treasured family photos were lost.
Student Jake Knappmiller summed up the experience: "We do a lot of growing at MSOE, academically, but through this we grew as people and as effective members of society."
Choosing MSOE says you not only want to be a better student but also a better person.