Abundant Opportunities at IRE

I was originally planning to go to a four year university for the latter two years of my bachelor’s degree when personal circumstances prevented me from leaving the area. That left only one option without putting my education on hold: Iron Range Engineering. When signing up and working with Ron to get enrolled, I was worried about the sacrifice in technical learning and whether or not there would be abundant opportunities. I was excited about having a personal work area, and I was highly impressed by the idea of having my educational experience modeled to match a real engineering job as closely as possible. I was not excited however, at the thought of having to sacrifice the technical learning to do so.

After completing a full semester of IRE, I want to state for any future student who is unsure or has doubts to see, that the depth in the CLASSES is sacrificed, but the depth in technical learning is not. Sure we don't spend 3-4 credits on every single subject we study, but through our projects and Deep Learning Activities we have the opportunity to learn more than the average student. With the experiments I ran in the Electronics class here, I not only learned the theories, but I was able to apply them and design both amplification and switching circuits that are commonly used in the real world. I can see that, by doing the hands on learning in 1 credit instead of pure theory in 3-4, the learning goes much deeper and it transfers into other subjects.

The opportunities I have had here at IRE have made me thank my lucky stars that I came here. I have had the opportunity to practice resume building and interviewing for real internship positions. I was able to practice in personal performance reviews that are done in the workplace through completing the PDP (Professional Development Plan). I also have had the opportunity to take my learning into my own hands and be able to research and experiment with Radio Frequency (RF) wireless power transfer, which has led me to choose a very specific specialty that I had not considered before. I would also like to add that by coming to IRE I have had the opportunity to work with students and faculty at other institutions to see cutting edge research in medical applications with Radio Frequency technology.

Through IRE's extended network of past students, colleagues, employees, and business partners, I have seen opportunities that from what I understand are normally only available to graduate students at traditional 4 year institutions. On top of that with the personal marketing practice we did, I easily acquired a paid internship at Blandin Paper Company in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, and have had the opportunity to talk with other employers about exciting internship opportunities in established and new markets. Through IRE's sophisticated learning process I feel like I will have every advantage possible when I graduate and look for a permanent career. 

By: Matt Helm

Reviewed by Kody Kamunen