Krissian Hargreaves

Engineering Futures Scholar

Engineering Futures scholar, Krissian Hargreaves, has been dancing since she was two years old and has always been interested in understanding the human body.

“I like the body. And I like how you can integrate technology and pretty much anything to the body to make it work together. I think that’s super interesting,” Hargreaves said.

Having heard about biomechanical engineering from a friend, Hargreaves decided it fit her interests perfectly, and when it was time to register for college, she chose ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering to pursue it. In August she will be starting her second year and is looking to minor- or eventually pursue a master’s- in mechanical engineering.

“I feel like there’s a lot of medical issues and health issues that haven’t been addressed yet, so I really feel like that’s what brought me to it. And I wanted to do mechanical just so that way I can do more robotics for like, limbs and stuff,” she said.

Hargreaves is a first-generation student and also the first to leave home.

“I’m pretty much the only one that will have a degree in like, almost all of my family,” she said. “So it’s really hard because no one understands what I’m talking about,” in regards to the FAFSA, homework and finding scholarships and grants. “Navigating through my first year was really hard.”

Despite these difficulties, Hargreaves fully dived into the engineering community at school, volunteering and briefly getting involved with the Society of Women Engineers (SWE). The volunteer position she took on was one in which she worked with a group to build robotic lego kits for kids and neighboring schools.

She said the most valuable lesson she took from her first year was how to prioritize her work load.

“Prioritizing was probably the biggest because engineering is such a demanding career,” in terms of how the curriculum is designed. “In our class set, we have so many pieces that we have to fit in our day … It’s kind of hard to prioritize what needs to get done first.”

With that in mind, Krissian is looking forward to her change in course load this fall, because she will be taking more biomedical engineering classes. “They’re the most fun,” she said, noting the projects and research that happens in classes related to her major. “I just think it’s cool, finding out more about what biomedical engineers do.”

By Summer Sorg, Science and Technology Writer, Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering
July 31, 2019