UM mechanical engineering major William Walker Wroe was honored with the School of Engineering's annual Senior Leadership Award and the Mississippi Engineering Society's Outstanding Senior Award.
OXFORD, Miss. – William Walker Wroe was happy when he learned he’d been nominated for the University of Mississippi School of Engineering’s annual Senior Leadership Award and the Mississippi Engineering Society’s Outstanding Senior Award. When the Austin, Texas, native learned he’d won both honors, he was elated.
“Receiving the Mississippi Engineering Society’s award for senior leadership would have to be the award I am most proud of,” said the 22-year-old mechanical engineering major. “It’s something I never had planned on or thought I would win, but it makes me very proud to know that others had appreciated my hard work and academic success.”
A member of the National Honor Society, Wroe has been on both the chancellor’s and dean’s honor rolls at the university. While managing to maintain a stellar grade-point average, he performed double duty for Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, working as house manager and as vice president of finance.
His summers have been divided among employment as a research assistant in the University of Texas at Austin’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, a sterile processing technician at Seton Family of Hospitals and an intern at Page Southerland Page LLP, all in his hometown.
“I chose to visit Ole Miss my senior year in high school because I had always had an affinity for SEC schools and the type of college experience their students can have,” Wroe said. “On my visit to Oxford, I met Mrs. (Marni) Kendricks and Mr. (Scott) Kilpatrick, and they explained to me not only what UM engineering could do for me but [also] what I could do for it. That got me real jazzed up about starting my higher education and strongly helped to sway my decision to Ole Miss.”
As part of his community service for the past three years, Wroe has tutored local high school students in calculus, algebra and statistics.
Wroe is deserving of his accolades, one UM faculty member said.
“I have a lot of great students every year, and this year Walker seems to be the best,” said Arunachalam Rajendran, chair and professor of mechanical engineering. “He’s an excellent student who is capable of learning any subject. He is very ambitious, and I believe he is destined to do great things in higher level learning and research.”
Wroe said his postgraduation plans include earning a master’s degree in engineering at University of Texas at Austin, starting in the fall.
“I hope this degree will aid me in getting a job working in the product-design field,” he said. “This is something I think I could be very passionate about and could hopefully turn into a long career. I would like to eventually earn my Ph.D. and teach, but I think having a successful career in industry would only help me to be a better teacher.”
Wroe’s desire to teach stems from his enjoyment of two engineering courses in particular, he said.
“Dr. (Jeff) Roux’s heat transfer course and Dr. (James) Vaughan’s materials class were my two favorite classes,” he said. “I enjoyed my materials class because it is something applicable in every field of engineering and in every engineering problem. In addition, it taught me a lot of things that I could see in my everyday life. Every time I see rust, I know what caused it, why I can bend copper with my hand but not steel, why metals conduct but not plastics. These are things that can be seen every day, and I enjoy knowing the underlying causes.
“The reason I enjoyed my heat transfer class is because it is knowledge I wish I had this past summer when I interned at an architecture and engineering firm back in Austin. There, we dealt a lot with heat transfer through ducts and walls and the best ways to insulate rooms. Now the information that I learn in class, I can immediately think about it in a real-world setting and how it would affect decisions I would have made with what materials to use or performance expectations to have of certain HVAC situations.”
Engineering has taught Wroe more than academics, he said.
“Here at Ole Miss, I spent a lot of time learning the fundamentals of science and engineering, and that is a very important base to have,” Wroe said. “But what I have learned here that is harder to teach is how to solve problems. This doesn’t exclusively mean math or physics equations, but broader problems where I must talk to teachers and experts, research things online or in the library. This ability to gather and learn new information is key in any career, not just engineering.
“I got everything I expected out of an SEC experience: football, fraternity and the Square,” Wroe said. “What I also got, though, was an excellent opportunity to excel in the classroom. Something I really enjoyed taking advantage of.”
Wroe is the son of Dr. William and Marietta Wroe of Austin.