Something is always happening in the Applied Engineering Building on UNI’s campus. Just ask Maddie Hageman, a manufacturing engineering technology and technology management student. She can often be found bustling around the building, using the cutting-edge machinery to gain even more hands-on experience she will leverage in her future career. The equipment is always available to students, and she takes full advantage of that.

As the daughter of an engineer, Hageman always knew she wanted to be a professional problem solver.

“I basically grew up around the engineering area,” she said. “I got to see it face-to-face right away.”

It’s easy to see why she calls the newly-renovated Applied Engineering Building home. 

“I know there’s an answer to everything — you’ve just got to find it, and that’s what I like,” she said. “Another thing I like is that it’s very hands-on. I learn the best when I’m actually out here doing, and I’m working with the machinery, and you get a lot of that here at UNI.”

Hageman also appreciates that UNI’s smaller size allows her to connect with the professors one on one. Whether she needs help in the classroom or with machinery in the AEB, she can always find someone who’s happy to help her.

“By the time you’re a senior like me, you’ll be able to just do projects on your own,” she said.

As a woman in a male-dominated field, it might have been easy for Hageman to feel like an outsider in an engineering program. But at the University of Northern Iowa, she was embraced wholeheartedly from the get-go and was able to quickly make new friends.

“Here at UNI, I felt welcomed right away because it’s very diverse,” she said. “I started the program as a woman, and I never felt singled out, never felt left out. Everyone was very welcoming.”