Engineering

Technology & Engineering Foundations

All freshmen at the Grace Hopper Center begin their journey in Technology & Engineering Foundations, a course designed to establish shared habits for learning, building, and problem-solving in today’s world.

This foundation matters because the conditions students are preparing for have fundamentally changed. The traditional path—study this, get good grades, and success will follow—is no longer as sturdy as it once was. The future students are entering is not only fast-moving, but increasingly uncertain. Technologies evolve rapidly, entry-level skills are automated, and the systems shaping modern life are complex and interconnected—often in ways that are impossible to predict. In this environment, what matters most are durable human capabilities: the ability to adapt, maintain agency among distractions, and continue learning as tools, careers, and expectations evolve.

Within this course, students develop these capabilities through hands-on engineering challenges that increase in complexity over time. They begin by designing and building a rocket from scratch, then progress to more complex systems. At each stage, students learn how systems work, how design decisions create tradeoffs, and how small choices can produce meaningful consequences. Rather than following step-by-step instructions, students practice making informed decisions—using data, testing, and feedback to improve their designs over time.

Across this progression, the course focuses on four core capabilities:

Learning How to Learn
Students learn how to acquire new tools and skills independently, seek and apply feedback, and revise their work—building the habits required to stay effective in changing conditions.

Comfort with Ambiguity
Students work through open-ended problems without predefined answers, developing confidence, resilience, and sound judgment when clarity must be earned rather than given.

Creating, Not Just Consuming
Students use technology to design, fabricate, test, and communicate ideas—developing craftsmanship, technical fluency, and pride in producing high-quality work.

Solving Hard Problems Together
Students collaborate in teams, communicate clearly, navigate conflict, and take individual responsibility for shared outcomes—mirroring how meaningful work happens beyond school.

And…

For those wanting to specialize within Engineering: