Megan Scherpereel is in the hot seat for being a super star student at WMU. She’s a civil engineering major and currently works for WMU’s Office of Development and Alumni Relations as the Training Manager in the Bronco Connection Center. There she trains new student alumni fundraisers and interacts with WMU alumni.
Megan is from South Bend, Indiana but she feels right at home in Kalamazoo. She’s part of a legacy, her father attended WMU too, but she insists that had no bearing on her decision to attend. While visiting Kalamazoo, she was surprised at how friendly everyone was. “I really like the people here. I visited other schools but Western was the most welcoming.”
Growing up, her favorite stuffed animal was a WMU Bronco. She likes to think that it played a subconscious role in choosing Western Michigan.
Above all, Megan is serious about school and how to finance it. She’s a seasoned pro when it comes to scholarships, and recently received the Monroe Brown scholarship through her work with the Miller-Davis Company. Megan’s other accolades include the WMU Achievement Award, the Gold Legacy scholarship, the Edward Ravitz Memorial Scholarship, and several applied science scholarships among many, many others.
With these scholarships, she’s free to immerse herself in WMU’s extracurricular activities. Right now, Megan is a member of the Civil Engineering School’s Steel Bridge Team, which competes with other schools to build and fabricate a scale model of a bridge made of steel.
Without these scholarships, Megan says, it would be very difficult to excel in school and participate in campus life. The financial assistance has given her the ability to go above and beyond.
Megan encourages other students in need of scholarships to attend campus activities such as Bronco Bash and the STEM Fair. The simplest thing, she said, is to just check your email! Departments typically send out emails throughout the semester informing students of scholarships and other opportunities that are available.
When Megan graduates in 2020, she plans to use her degree to get a job in the civil engineering field. If she could give advice to incoming students, she would tell them to explore majors before declaring to know exactly what you’re getting into and to save the headache of switching majors later.
“Growing up, I was fortunate to have family friends in the engineering field,” she said. “Having knowledge of Civil Engineering before declaring it as a major made selecting it easy.”