The Bridge - Issue 2, 2021 - 36

Student Profile
Hannah Schroeder
Epsilon Epsilon
University of Houston
Hannah Schroeder is a senior in Electrical Engineering
at the University of Houston. She grew up in the
suburb of Friendswood, Texas, and has had a lifelong
penchant for patterns and computers. When Hannah
originally entered college, she pursued a major in
Vocal Performance (i.e. classical singing). Although she
loved the study of music, she discovered that pursuing
a career in either music education or performance
was unappealing. She decided to change her major
after two semesters. Since then, Hannah has found
more peace and success in an analytical field.
Although it was not her initiative to restart the Epsilon
Epsilon Chapter of IEEE-HKN, which had been inactive
for roughly 10 years, Hannah was the first Chapter
President to direct the planning of any Chapter
events, establish regular meetings between officers,
and set up several long-lasting Chapter practices
and documents to support future members. The
Epsilon Epsilon Chapter has grown rapidly since its
inception. Its first new members were inducted in
December 2019, and by October 2020, the Chapter
was hosting an event roughly every two weeks. The
Chapter is now reaching out to students outside of
the Engineering college in Engineering Technology
and Computer Science, and aims to establish a wellknown,
welcoming, and exciting presence on the UH
campus. In addition to her work with HKN, Hannah
is also a National Merit Scholar and the recipient of
two UH Engineering Alumni Association awards. She
also is an active writer and actor in the Honors College
theater club.
THE BRIDGE
What has it meant to you to be inducted
into IEEE-HKN?
Quite a bit! At UH, many of our engineering student
organization meetings can be large and intimidating,
but with HKN, it's much easier to get to know
people. It's especially beneficial to be around people
who are in the same major, at the same level, and
who have similar personalities to you. I have also
gained an incredible amount of resourcefulness
and self-confidence by taking on a leadership role
in HKN, and I believe I would be a dramatically
different person today had I shied away from
this position.
Do you have a best HKN story to share?
I have two! I thoroughly enjoyed the 2019 Student
Leadership Conference (SLC). At that point, I was
the Vice President of the Chapter, and we were
still figuring out what our HKN Chapter should look
like. We had our first induction later that semester.
I talked to so many people during the SLC, and
got some great ideas and advice about how to run
an HKN Chapter. We hung out quite a bit with the
Kappa Psi Chapter from UCSD -- special thanks to
them! My other favorite event is Epsilon Epsilon's first
real event: a tutoring and study session for Circuits 1
and 2 students that took place in February 2020. We
had roughly 25 members at the time, all inducted in
December 2019, and about half of them showed up
to volunteer at our first event. It warmed my heart so
much to see that much enthusiasm, especially when
we were such a young chapter.
Why did you choose to study the
engineering field?
I grew up around engineers, so engineering always
seemed like a viable career path for someone who
was, and is, a big nerd. However, I wanted to pursue
a career that I loved emotionally, so I initially chose
to study music in college. I eventually realized,
though, that I missed the more analytical thinking of
one of the STEM disciplines, and that I could still love
music without tying it to my personal finances. That's
not to say I don't love engineering, I do! I just didn't
realize until later that the satisfaction of working on
a problem was an emotion worth exploring. I had
often dismissed that satisfaction as pretentiousness
https://hkn.ieee.org/ https://hkn.ieee.org/
The Bridge - Issue 2, 2021

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