Eve Freed '21
Major | IDEAS: Mechanical Engineering and Design
Nest | EdTech
In my two years that I’ve spent at Lehigh, I’ve had many days where I’ve considered transferring. I don’t feel that I’m getting the amazing “Lehigh experience” everyone else says they’ve had, and I often struggle to shake the haunting feeling that I’ve chosen the wrong school.
After spending the first couple of days at the Hatchery bootcamp, I found myself reassured with my choice to come to Lehigh. I closed all the tabs on articles titled “Should I Transfer?” and deleted all the college applications I’d half heartedly started.
At bootcamp, I became familiar with many new faces and found that I was not alone in being unsure about my education and the experiences I’ve had here so far. Each time someone new shared something about themselves, I was reminded of why I chose to come to Lehigh in the first place: the people. Everyone here has a big picture perspective. They’re spirited, passionate, and incredibly motivated by the idea that they’re going to change the world. One of the reasons I joined the Hatchery was to make new connections with other students; I knew instantly that that goal would be the easiest one I’d accomplish this summer.
There are a lot of different minds here with me in Wilbur Powerhouse this summer. There’s engineers, artists, scientists, analysts, computer nerds, extroverts and introverts, optimists, adventurers- honestly, this list could go on forever. The point is that we’re all pretty different, but we were all drawn to this program so that we could become one more thing. As soon as we arrived in late May, we became entrepreneurs. It’s a neat label. It sounds impressive out there in the real world. But I think if you dig a little deeper, entrepreneur can mean a little more than someone who starts their own business. It’s all about helping people. This became apparent to me when we were introduced to the problem areas we’d be looking into all summer. We gravitated toward something we connected to. Some wanted to help solve healthcare crises; others wanted to tackle housing issues. Regardless, everyone here seems to be driven by the desire to bring happiness to others. These are the type of people that I love, and these are the type of people that brought me to this school and this type of program, too.
It was silly of me to even consider transferring as much as I had. I’d been searching for people who share my optimism and drive to make the world a better place and I’ve found a lot of them here. I can’t wait to be back on campus in the fall; not just because I’ll have new friends to smile at in the library or across the classroom, but because I’ve been reminded that Lehigh has so much to offer in the form of programs like this. The Hatchery has given me a new family (a family of Hatchery peeps!), and has already helped me to fall back in love with Lehigh and the people I share my home with here.