In high school, he was an average student. But Penn College changed that. Immersive hands-on learning with passionate faculty pushed him to a whole new level. He made the dean’s list every semester and went on to earn his master’s and then his doctorate in electrical and computer engineering. Today he's inspiring the next generation of tomorrow makers as an assistant professor at the University of Arizona.
It gives me a ton of flexibility in what I do. If I was working for a company, my day would be more structured in terms of the types of problems I would work on. In academia, I get to choose what those problems are, as long as they are aligned with the needs of my students. I love being in the classroom and teaching. I love working with students and mentoring them the same way that I was mentored.
Since I was a little kid, I’ve been interested. We never had the fastest computer, but we had a computer. I was always curious about it and working on it. I remember when Windows 95 came out, and I was blown away.
There were some other schools that I looked at, but I remember visiting Penn College and meeting Rick Calvert (assistant professor of electronics and computer engineering technology) and thinking that it was the better school for me. Rick was very direct about what I was going to go through and what my job opportunities would be. It was an easy decision to go to Penn College.
I think Rick Calvert and Bill West (assistant professor of electronics and computer engineering technology) are the two I look up to the most in terms of how teaching is done. They made class exciting. They were fantastic. They really pushed me, which I didn’t get in high school for the most part.
Some of those fundamental skills of breaking down problems and trying to solve them started at Penn College. I was really into all the classes I took. I really enjoyed all of my professors that I got to interact with and the challenging problems that came along with the labs. The lab-based component was very critical to understanding fundamental concepts.
It gives you the hands-on experience and training that you need for a technical degree. By having hands-on components, it instills a level of curiosity that’s only going to snowball and make you a better scientist, engineer, teacher or whatever career you choose.
“I wasn’t known as a great high school student by any measure, but once I got to Penn College, it was like a light turned on and everything switched. I was really into all the classes and enjoying all of my professors and the challenging problems in labs. The fundamental skills of breaking down problems and trying to solve them started at Penn College.”
Gregory Ditzler
The National Science Foundation recently honored Greg with a Faculty Early Career Development Award, the agency’s most prestigious grant to faculty in their first academic assignment. He will receive $500,000 in funding for the next five years to support his academic and research endeavors in and out of the classroom.
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