MEDIA, Pa. — Eric Hallahan came to Penn State Brandywine eager to enter its exceptional engineering program. Today, as he enters his final year at Brandywine, the engineering major is flourishing in his internship at Penn State Great Valley.
“I wanted to go into engineering because I’ve always enjoyed building things and seeing how things work,” he said. “Being in the major now, I’ve enjoyed learning about the engineering process. It’s really important to know if you want to make things well.”
Hallahan notes that the main reason why he chose to attend Brandywine is because of its multidisciplinary engineering program, as it’s a very broad subject that allows students to take a variety of paths in the field. The program is in partnership with Penn State Abington and Penn State Great Valley.
“The multidisciplinary engineering program made the most sense to pursue because it touches various fields within engineering, which is really what drew me to Brandywine in the first place,” he said. “The program covers every field and there’s enough variety there to keep me interested and go through the program.”
This summer, Hallahan began an internship at Penn State Great Valley in its engineering department. As an engineering intern, he is working with faculty to design a 3D and build a printer that uses a special one-kilowatt laser to bond high temperature materials into the final print.
“My role right now is mostly working on a 3D printer that’s been under active development by a former capstone team at Great Valley,” he said. “My role has been trying to take what’s been left by the team and continue their work and create something that will be able to produce things like metal or ceramic materials.”
Having been in his internship for over one month, Hallahan said what he enjoys most about his time at Great Valley is his time spent working on the 3D printer, noting it’s something he’s always been interested in.
“I proposed working on a project just like this — and got accepted — during my first year at Brandywine while in the Cooper Honors Program. 3D printing is something I’ve always been interested in, so getting to do this internship has been great so far,” he said.
“We’re currently in the beginning stages of it, so I’m looking forward to seeing it progress more over the summer. Given the state of the project and what’s been left for me, I have a lot of design freedom, which I really like.”
When he graduates next May, Hallahan hopes to take what he learns from his internship at Great Valley to a full-time role, stating that 3D printing technology is something he can see himself working with in the long run.
“I really like working with 3D printers and I’m interested in building and making materials with them in the future,” he said. “I’m still unsure of which specialty of engineering I want to go into long term, but working with 3D printers isn’t out of the question.”