Name: Melissa Biel
Major: Electrical engineering
Education: Stevens Institute of Technology (Hoboken, NJ)

Thinking up cool cell phone features is great, but when you need the expertise to make it happen, technical training is key. Melissa Biel, a senior at Stevens Institute of Technology, can't wait to work with electronics. It started when she got her first computer at age eight.

"I wanted to know how it worked, so my stepfather sat with me every night and taught me things like binary code," she says.

Bitten by the computer bug, Melissa took some computer networking classes at night since her high school didn't offer them. She was able to finish high school in three years and get to college early to pursue electrical engineering.

"Electrical engineering is awesome, and it's everywhere. From alarm clocks to cars to computers, everything has electronics in it," explains Melissa. For instance, in one of her first circuit labs in college, she built microphones and was amazed to see something that she put together herself.

Her dream job? This huge fan of Macs would love to work for Apple. She has to complete her last year at Stevens, but she's also been taking graduate-level classes so that this May, she'll be halfway to a master's degree. Electrical engineers need core classes like physics and calculus, with corresponding design labs that incorporate hands-on experiments. They must also learn engineering topics like mechanics of solids and thermodynamics.

Although Melissa is often the only girl in male-dominated engineering classes, that doesn't bother her at all. "And it shouldn't deter other girls from getting into this field," she adds.

Classes aren't the only important piece to this hands-on major, attests the choir and dramatic society member, sorority girl, and electrical and computer engineering student advisory council member. Internships are important, too, says Melissa. This past summer, she interned at MarketAxess, one of the leading platforms for electronic trading of bonds and fixed-income securities. While there, she gave recovery disaster presentations, obtained quotes from IT vendors, and worked closely with the infrastructure team on various projects.

Her top lesson? "Find out what you love the most," Melissa advises. "If you're torn between technology and something else, try combining the two."

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