By Donna Capodelupo
dcapodelupo@haverhillgazette.com
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Andrew Wysocki says Northern Essex Community College was instrumental in exposing his aptitude for math. No small matter, for someone who insists he was an average math student in high school.
Math has so expanded his mind in fact, that Wysocki is the first student in the history of Northern Essex to focus his Honors Experience Project on a Differential Equations class — specifically air resistance. Today, the 24-year-old Wysocki is just one semester shy of earning his associate degree in engineering science with honors from Northern Essex and plans to continue on for his bachelor's, he hopes, at Northeastern University or UMass Lowell.
For his academic achievements, Wysocki recently received a $500 Honors Experience Scholarship. He was one of 200 Northern Essex students to share in the $169,000 worth of scholarships bestowed by the college.
When the Haverhill resident graduated from Somersworth (NH) High School in 2004 he went to work in the restaurant arena. When he realized the kitchen was not for him, he enrolled in general education classes at Stratham Tech (now New Hampshire Community Technical College) and then UMass Lowell. It was while he was at UMass Lowell that he realized he was in over his academic head.
"I realized I needed a strong math foundation if I was going to pursue engineering," he said. "I realized I needed to come to Northern Essex first."
So, in the spring of 2008 he enrolled at Northern Essex. It was during a calculus class that a professor told him, "You have a different way of seeing this material compared to most others. You are better at it."
This revelation opened his mind as well as doors. Tutoring in the math lab was a natural next step which eventually led to peer mentoring as a Supplemental Instructor in algebra and trigonometry classrooms.
"I found being a supplemental instructor particularly helpful," he says. It is one thing to learn the material. It is another to convey the ideas to someone else and have them understand it."
Wysocki says he was drawn to engineering for a number of reasons.
""I've always liked solving problems and I've always been interested in space and air craft. My ideal job would be assisting in the design of air craft." He says.
That, he says, will have to wait until he finishes school. Once he graduates from NECC he hopes to find a paid internship for the spring and summer. Then he will pursue his bachelor's degree.
He credits Northern Essex with assisting him in finding his direction and developing his study skills.
"This place really wants people to succeed. The faculty wants you to gain a true understanding of the material, not just take a class," he says. "They will do everything they can to see that it is done."
Your experience here is what you make of it. The faculty in the math department is more than helpful. They make themselves available to students at all hours of the day."
