Laura Franke likes math and science and she loves to design things and fix problems. An engineering degree seemed like a natural choice, but as a freshman in the UW-Madison”s engineering school, she wasn”t sure which field to pursue.

“Luckily for me I took a one-credit course that introduced undecided freshmen to the different options for an engineering major,” she says. “Otherwise, I don”t think I ever would have discovered biological systems engineering in CALS.”

Franke, a Kenosha native who graduated in 2003, grew up camping and hiking with her family. She was the one who introduced recycling programs at home. When she learned that some engineers work on environmental problems like irrigation, drainage and managing watershed and runoff, she was hooked. She transferred into the College to pursue a degree in biological systems engineering – BSE for short. “I couldn”t believe how easy it was to transfer!” she recalls.

One of the best things about BSE is the personal attention, says Franke. “I have friends in other colleges who have to look up their advisers” names every time they go in for a meeting, which isn”t often,” she says. “But I got to pick my own adviser, and after a while you get to know most of the other professors and the other students. People know who you are in this department.”

Franke honed her engineering skills with an internship at S.C. Johnson in Racine. For a senior project, she worked with a team to design an environmentally friendly building for one of the College”s agricultural research stations. She also served as secretary for the College”s chapter of the American Society of Agricultural Engineers. All this left her well prepared for her next step: a master”s degree in civil engineering from the UW-Madison.