U-Mary's first class of engineers show off their projects to Bobcat

Engineers help our world go round. They create and maintain many of the things we take for granted every day. Now there's a new engineering program for college students in Bismarck.

The University of Mary started its engineering program last fall in conjunction with the University of North Dakota. Freshmen showed off their final projects to engineers in the field to see how they stack up.

Engineers tend to like to use their hands.

"I've always loved building stuff and taking it apart and messing around in my dad's garage you know," said Issac Tousignant, freshman engineering student.

These freshmen from U-Mary are training to become the next generation of engineers.

"The power system the infrastructure of a city the sewer and water system all the vehicles you see the buildings you see, satellites that are orbiting the earth, GPS systems all of this was built by engineers," said Terry Pillings, University of Mary associate dean of engineering.

The students are showing off their final projects. Standard curriculum doesn't have students do these until they're juniors or seniors, but U-Mary wants them to get firsthand experience right away.

"I really love it because I learn best with hands on and, you know, if someone can show me how to do it I can pretty much do the exact same thing. It's the best way of learning I think," said Tousignant.

"One problem is fewer and fewer kids are going into engineering. One of the reason is it takes a lot of math to be in engineer and math is something that, especially American kids are having trouble with these days," said Pillings.

The U-Mary program won't become fully accredited until one year after the first students graduate. Until then these students will get their degree in conjuncture from UND.