Last year's excursions to the remote hill country of southwestern El Salvador promised to be excellent adventures for Scott Crook and Aparna Shrivastava. The OSU students' mission - to build clean-water systems with coffee farmers living high in a hidden rainforest - would test their engineering skills and slake their thirst for new experiences. They never expected the project to change their lives.
"It completely transformed my belief in me," says Shrivastava, a junior in mechanical engineering from Tigard, Oregon. "It changed my perspective about what I can do for the world."
Crook echoes her sentiment. "It made me realize the incredible things you can do in the world," says the civil-engineering sophomore from Salem.
The El Salvador Water Project is one of several initiatives of the OSU student chapter of Engineers Without Borders USA (EWB-USA) - a nonprofit humanitarian organization that partners with communities across the globe to solve quality-of-life problems.
