It was her senior year of high school, and Hannah Moss had already accepted admission to Fresno State as a business major. She loved math and thought accounting might be her calling, until her physics teacher changed her mind. As he passed back a test, she noticed hers had a message at the top: “You should really consider engineering.”

At Dog Days, Hannah took a leap of faith and changed her major to mechanical engineering, hoping for the best. She signed up for an introductory class, but soon found it more overwhelming than reassuring.

“It became very apparent that I was a little bit of a fish out of water because I’d never worked on an engine, still haven’t to this day," she said. "I’ve never pulled apart a computer and put it back together. That’s just not who I was, so I got really intimidated my first semester.”

Before changing her major, Hannah had to get a signature from the department chair, but Dr. Gemunu Happawana (Mechanical Engineering Department) saw Hannah's potential and urged her to keep going.

“He was like, ‘Just give me one more semester…you give me one more semester, and maybe you’ll change your mind," she said. "So I took a few more courses and I went back to him every single semester after that.”

While working as an intern during her last semester, Hannah met her current boss at an offsite training. He gave her a part time job at Teter AE, a Central California firm that brings architects and engineers together.

After graduation in 2014, she became a full-time employee and “Engineer in Training.” Her projects include designing the mechanical and plumbing systems for CSU Bakersfield’s Humanities Administration Building.

Hannah was one signature away from a different major and, ultimately, a different life. She is grateful to Dr. Happawana for investing time in her as a student and showing her that life is full of learning curves.

See more.