From a student who studied with Orlando Ayala, ODU faculty
member who took the IDW Workshops in Spring 2015:
"When I took all of my classes with you (MET 330, 350, 440) I thought that you were making us write and explain all of our work and thoughts as a way to make our lives more difficult...but looking back now, I am glad you made us do it. The extra steps that I took in our work are really are paying off.
I am emailing you to let you know that I am going for an interview this Friday morning at Rolls-Royce as a Manufacturing Systems Engineer. A lot of what I would be doing would be engineering reports so I thought I would reach out to you and ask if you would be one of my references as well as write a letter of recommendation for the interveiw. I am also planning on making copies of some of my work from your classes and taking that in as well.
I thank you for all your help throughout my college career in both the short-run and the long-run. Everything you taught me is taking effect now and I look forward to seeing what my future has to offer!"
From Dione Tucker, enrolled in EXSC 431W in 2017, taught by
an ODU faculty member who took the IDW Workshops in Spring 2017:
"The course format included a hands-on approach to help me learn about my discipline. The lecture material was provided for me to not only memorize but to also critically think about how to apply it in my daily responsibilities as a health professional. I was able to use it for purposes both inside and outside of the classroom. For instance, I analyzed the services of a community recreational center, volunteered at a public health screening, and created a strength-training program for a retirement facility. I was required to effectively communicate and work with others in order to address the needs of my community.
In my career, I plan to directly help individuals start and maintain a lifestyle of great health in all dimensions of their lives. I found all the information in the course to be useful for my goal. I am now confident enough to develop a detailed employee physical-wellness program from scratch because I developed something similar in class with a team. There are several other projects that I worked on during the course that could be realistically adopted in a health or work-site setting. I now feel better prepared to approach and handle certain responsibilities as I go into my future field."