The second time Cadet Caitlyn Tyson watched Top Gun: Maverick, she was eating tacos in Mark Clark Hall with fellow Class of 2026 engineering students, and this time she was watching the movie from an engineer’s perspective. “It’s a cool movie,” she said. “I never thought about looking at the engineering, like the actual speed that the jets were going.”
Before the movie began, Andrew Williams, Ph.D., the dean of the School of Engineering, challenged students to think about how engineering is used in the movie. “What would you have to learn to design the engineering project you observe?” he asked. “Which do you think is safer—the manned fighter jets or the unmanned? Which is a better build? How can flameout—the extinguishing of the flame in the combustion chamber—be prevented? And how can fighter jets in the United States be improved?” Williams’ line of questions transported the cadets from the casual atmosphere of the auditorium into the realm of real-world engineering and high-speed flight.
Movie night is just one evening in a weekly program for freshman engineering majors. The program, which lasts for eight weeks in the fall, is called BIIG DOGS—Belonging Innovative Instruction Groups Designed for On-time Graduation Success—and with 161 freshmen majoring in an engineering field, Williams is committed to ensuring their success. As they enjoy dinner and camaraderie, students learn organizational strategies, study skills, mental wellness, innovation skills and an entrepreneurial mindset.
A native of Summerville, South Carolina, Tyson became interested in the military college as a young middle school student participating in STEM activities. Now a rising sophomore, she is a double major in computer science and electrical engineering.
Thanks in part to the BIIG DOGS program and her own hard work, she closed out her freshman year with Gold Stars for achieving a semester GPA of 3.7 or higher. Tyson’s future in engineering is bright, and it appears that she’s been cleared for take-off.