Engineers' Forum [April 2023]

Engineers’ Forum APRIL 2023

VOLUME 44

NUMBER 2

VIRGINIA TECH’S PREMIER STUDENT-RUN ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY MAGAZINE

“THERE ARE NO SMALL JOBS AT SSP” Vice Admiral Johnny R. Wolfe, Jr. Director, Strategic Systems Programs If interested send resumes to: SSPrecruitment@ssp.navy.mil

Photo / Peter Do

Spring in Blacksburg On The Cover / Nidhi Chopdekar

TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE 05

CAMEO Career Fair

PAGE 09

RSAP: Rising Sophomore Abroad Program

Ethan Chung

Zoe Miloszewski

PAGE 13

PAGE 17

PAGE 21

CEED’s Peer Mentoring Program Jasmine Mendez

Student Space-Design Competition Aine O’Reilly

How and Why to Pursue Undergraduate Research Adrian DiMarco

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Welcome to the April 2023 issue of Engineers’ Forum!

We hope everyone is enjoying the warm weather and finishing off the spring semester strong! As the end of the spring semester draws near, the engineering department has had many different opportunities for its students.

First up, Ethan Chung, highlights the Cameo Career Fair. The article walks us through what Cameo is, as well as how students can participate in the career fair. The insider information featured here also talks about the number of companies that participated. If you want to know how to score an internship during the next career fair, this is the article for you!

Are you interested in studying abroad? Zoe Miloszewski’s article walks us through the Virginia Tech’s Rising Sophomore Abroad Program. This is a great read for everyone interested in the requirements to study abroad, as well as what that experience looks like. This is a great read to learn about what opportunities VT is offering for students to travel the world.

For those of you new to Virginia Tech or looking for a sense of community, Jasmine Mendez’s piece is a perfect read to learn about CEED’s Peer Mentoring Program. This includes specifics of what the program does, the opportunities provided, and how to get involved.

Featuring the Student Space-Design Competition Provides Unique Opportunity for the Future of Science, Aine O’Reilly covers the CanSat competition arranged by the American Astronautical Society (AAS). She dives into how the CanSat competition offers students a unique opportunity to design and create a functional product.

If you’re curious as to how and why you should pursue undergraduate research, Adrian DiMarco, highlights the nitty gritty details on what the process looks like. It touches on the types of criterion the Hume Center and other defense opportunities may require as well as various student perspectives on research.

We appreciate your continued support of our mission: to capture the student engineering experience at Virginia Tech. Enjoy!

Sincerely, Adeline Ghosh Editor-in-Chief

Engineers’ Forum Editor-in-Chief

Adeline Ghosh - Finance (‘24)

Creative Director

Stella Shin - Architecture (‘25)

Chief Copy Editor

Peyton Ludwig - Computer Science (‘26)

Business Manager

Jolene Ghosh - Economics (‘25)

Webmaster Writers

Photography Team

Design Team

Distribution Management Team

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@vtengineers_forum

(Background) WUVT Music Archive by Peter Do

Nidhi Chopdekar - Computer Science (Graduate’23) Aine O’Reilly - Biochemistry (‘26) Adrian DiMarco - General Engineering (‘26) Ethan Chung - Mechanical Engineering (‘25) Jasmine Mendez - General Engineering (‘26) Zoe Miloszewski - Biomedical Engineering (‘26)

Kiara Kulkarni - General Engineering (‘26) Nidhi Chopdekar - Computer Science (Graduate’23) Peter Do - General Engineering (‘26) Stella Shin - Architecture (‘25) Tamia Barnes - Architecture (‘25)

Kennetria Torain - Biology (‘24) Adrian Dimarco - General Engineering (‘26) Tanish Wangoo - Computer Engineering (‘26) Kiara Kulkarni - General Engineering (‘26) Morgan Andrews - General Engineering (‘26)

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The CAMEO Career Fair Article / Ethan Chung With the Spring semester well under way, there are still many students looking for summer plans. Some students may be looking forward to relaxing or traveling, but there are many under the pressure to find a summer internship.

Luckily for the engineering students, they once again had the opportunity to dress up, polish off their resumes, and practice their elevator pitches as the CAMEO Career Fair gives every engineering student an opportunity to fulfill their pursuit of an internship. Virginia Tech holds many career fairs geared toward specific people in certain demographics, which range by disciplines you’re studying, to certain groups of peoples, to overall career fairs. In February, the annual CAMEO Career fair took place, to appeal to the group of minority engineering students.

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Council for Advancement of Minority Engineering Organizations, or CAMEO for short, was hosted on February 23rd in the Squires Commonwealth Ballroom, with February 24th as an exclusive-interview-only day for individuals that impressed recruiters. CAMEO is an umbrella organization for the minority engineering organizations, connecting Virginia Tech Engineers with incredible companies.

Cameo is an entirely student-run organization, consisting of representatives from every minority engineering society, including the Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers (SASE) and the Society of Women Engineers (SWE). The representatives along with Dr. Bevlee Watford and her Assistant Mrs. Taylor Cupp have put together the focal point of opportunities of making connections between students and their future employers.

The Executive Planning Board

The career fair has a lot of time and effort going into it, but as Alex Zapata says, “ I really enjoy seeing students walking away with jobs, connections, and all the free merch companies give out! I remember being a Sophomore desperately looking for a summer internship and I wasn’t certain if I would get one”. Everyone at one point was nervous to go talk to recruiters, and some may still be even with internship experience. But what makes it so exciting, is the opportunity to show your best professional persona and landing the interview, and eventually the position, and that makes all the anxiety worthwhile.

Cameo Career Fair Before Commencing

The career fair had opportunities for everyone who wanted to get more involved, from planning, to volunteering, to an active participant. Students had the opportunity to volunteer as a general helper which helped set up the fair and set it into motion. Other options included shuttle drivers for company representatives to and from their desired locations or check in helpers which gave student’s the opportunity to put their best foot forward with their name and major as the first thing employers see. Alex Zapata, a senior Mechanical Engineering student and Vice president of Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers has stated that it’s challenging but rewarding being one of the student representatives helping plan this career fair.

He states that the board only consists of 9 students and 1 faculty, so they must delegate the responsibilities by org to lead the way of their task. One organization will handle name tags and another catering, but at the end of the day it takes a collective effort to organize an event of this magnitude to keep all the companies and their representatives well informed, fed, and given the best opportunity to meet with students.

Students putting their best food forward

This year’s CAMEO Career Fair held 100+ companies, many of which had notable reputations. Companies like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and General Electric were there to recruit students for internships or full time positions. There were many opportunities to prepare your elevator pitch and shake off the nerves. Before the CAMEO Career Fair, there was the opportunity to attend the CAMEO Summit on February 19th, a few days before showtime at the career fair. At this workshop, you can have your resume reviewed, practice your elevator pitch, or discuss strategies on how to have a conversation with employers. Whether you’re there to shoot your best shot at a recruiter or there to volunteer, the CAMEO Career Fair is an opportunity for many students to solidify their plans for the summer, gain some experience, and most exciting of all, make some money!

Volunteers helping out with check in

RSAP: Rising Sophomore Abroad Program Virginia Tech’s Rising Sophomore Abroad Program Article / Zoe Miloszewski

During RSAP 2019, students visit the Austrian countryside and pose in front of the Alps.

Photo credit: https://vtx.vt.edu/articles/2019/09/eng-rising-sophomore-abroad.html

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Many college students hope for the chance to travel the world, but not all know how to go about pursuing that dream. Virginia Tech has hundreds of study abroad programs that allow students to fulfill their international aspirations while also earning credit towards their degree. The Rising Sophomore Abroad Program (RSAP) is one such program that helps engineering students gain exposure to global learning with a 2-week program abroad. This trip takes place right after students complete their spring semester of freshman year. Their experience abroad is paired with a 3-credit course called Global STEM Practice (ENGE 1644) that is taken during the spring semester prior to the trip. This course introduces the importance of global connections in engineering to students while also studying how culture and background influence engineering practices. There are 7 different tracks of the RSAP program this year, each including 2 different countries, so students will certainly be able to find a destination they’d like to explore. RSAP is designed to build students’ comfort with international travel and expand their knowledge about international engineering practice in order to promote their engagement in other study abroad opportunities or internships.

VT students at the Hassan Tower Mosque in Rabat, Morocco. Photo by Lisa Schibelius.

The students participating in RSAP this May will be going to some very exciting places around the world.

The 7 tracks are Argentina and Chile, Australia and New Zealand, Germany and Italy, Japan and South Korea, Norway and Finland, Spain and Morocco, and the UK and Ireland. These tracks each clearly offer a unique and diverse opportunity to learn about the culture of a particular region of the world. This year will only be the second time the program has run since it was shut down in 2020 due to the pandemic. Last year, there were still limitations on the program, and only 4 tracks were available. The extensive itinerary and staggering list of countries to visit for RSAP 2023 is exciting proof of the vitality of the program, even in the wake of COVID-19.

There aren’t any academic prerequisites for the RSAP program; students must simply complete the application! The application for the 2024 spring semester course and RSAP program will be open in August of 2023. Any incoming freshman engineering student can apply for the program until midway through their first semester. Though students will not yet have a GPA when they apply, their GPA will be checked at the end of the first semester and a GPA of at least 2.5 is required to continue in the program. Each track has a slightly different cost due to the nature of each respective destination, but the average cost is about $5,500.

This price includes airfare, housing, ground travel in the destination countries, activity and excursion fees, and most meals. There are also multiple scholarship opportunities available to students who wish to participate in the program but may need financial assistance.

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Students pose under a plane at the German Technology Museum. Photo by Jessica Deters.

The RSAP program is designed so that students of any major within the College of Engineering will be able to benefit from the trip. While students are exploring the countries on their track, they will also be touring engineering companies and meeting with employees to learn more about what engineering looks like around the world. They will also have the opportunity to meet with engineering students like them studying at universities in whichever country they visit. Since engineering is such a collaborative field, these opportunities will be applicable in some way to everyone on the trip, regardless of their specific major. Siddharth Tibrewala, an aerospace engineering student who will be participating in RSAP this May, says he is “really looking forward to visiting the different places in the UK and Ireland and also meeting people from different companies that we are going to tour.” When asked what he enjoys most about Global Stem Practices this semester, he said “it’s helping me meet a lot of new people that I would not have met before”. Considering these students will be spending 2 weeks together in another country this summer, it’s great that the class gives them an opportunity to get to know one another before they take off.

RSAP is truly a one of a kind opportunity, and since it’s only available to students after their first year at Tech, it’s something that incoming students should highly consider. For anyone who is considering studying abroad but may not want to commit to a full semester in another country, RSAP provides an excellent opportunity to get comfortable with the idea of spending an extended period of time outside of the U.S., especially for students who may have never left the country before.

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Students on a guided tour of London. Photo by Malle Schilling.

Studying abroad is a great way for students to expand their horizons and experience other cultures. Since engineering is an extremely global field, it’s especially great for engineering students to have experience communicating and working with others outside of the U.S. Virginia Tech is certainly ahead of the game with RSAP; our neighboring Virginia universities only offer the traditional semester, winter, or summer abroad programs. This program is a one of a kind opportunity, and aside from the personal benefits of traveling and meeting people from different backgrounds than oneself, it provides an excellent talking point for interviews and develops a skillset that engineering companies will be thrilled to see on a resume.

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CEED’s Peer Mentoring Program Article / Jasmine Mendez

Virginia Tech’s Center for the Enhancement of Engineering Diversity (CEED) has created the peer mentoring program to help the next wave of engineering freshmen experience a smooth transition into college life while making connections with their peers and upperclassmen mentors.

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What is the CEED peer mentoring program?

Calling all incoming engineering freshmen! Don’t miss out on your opportunity to register for the CEED Peer Mentoring program. The Academic Hispanic OutReach Alliance (AHORA), Black Engineering Support Teams (BEST), General Undergraduate Engineering Support Teams (GUEST), and Women in Engineering Support Teams (WEST) are the four main mentoring groups you can choose to register for. If you are able to apply to several of these groups, be sure to apply to the one you believe you’ll be the most comfortable in. It is an amazing opportunity to meet and interact with other students in your same major while having a mentor available to help you in your first semester at Virginia Tech!

Being a Mentee Before your first semester begins, you’ll receive a call from your mentor where you can get to know each other and ask any questions you have before you arrive on campus.

The program consists of weekly meetings the first ten weeks of your fall semester. At these meetings, mentors provide valuable information ranging from how to be prepared for school to plans for your sophomore year. Courtesy of CEED, mentor groups are also able to have occasional meals off-campus to catch a break from the stress of the semester by socializing and getting to know each other better. It is an amazing opportunity to meet and interact with other students in your same major while having a mentor available to help you in your first semester at Virginia Tech!

Peer mentoring group at O-Show. Instagram @vt_ceed_pm

Why Should You Join?

Mentors are an amazing resource and truly want to help you succeed. They can offer advice on academics such as study tips and how to prepare for exams. They can also provide help on topics such as off-campus housing, internships, jobs, and more. The mentors are there to provide support, so don’t be afraid to reach out and ask questions. Even at the end of the program, you are always encouraged to reach out to your mentor in the future with any questions or concerns you may have, because they are still always available to help. Being a part of the peer mentoring program also introduces you to a group of incoming freshmen that may come from similar backgrounds as you, allowing you to make friends and find familiar faces around campus very quickly. Remember to try staying in touch, studying together, and helping each other succeed!

Mentoring group’s first meeting, playing volleyball! Instagram @vt_ceed_pmvt_ceed_pm

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Be on the Lookout for these Big Events Throughout the mentoring period, CEED hosts a few large events to help students navigate the engineering opportunities here on campus. The first event of the program is the Welcome Event where you meet your mentor and peers for the first time. This is later followed by an Engineering Expo prep session to make sure you know how to prepare, dress, and impress at Expo. They run down the basics of resumes, elevator pitches, and attire to make sure you have an amazing experience at the Engineering Expo. The second major event that is hosted is Major Scoop where upperclassmen students from the different engineering majors are available to answer your questions regarding their majors and experience while enjoying some ice cream.

The final event of the mentoring program is the Mentor Celebration which is the culmination of the ten week period.

You are able to meet up with your mentor group and have the chance to meet fellow peers who were also a part of the program and celebrate the end of a successful first ten weeks!

Picture taken at the Mentor Celebration. Instagram @vt_ceed_pm

We Want YOU Be an influential part of the lives of incoming freshmen these next few years by becoming a peer mentor! With resources to help guide you, training, and peer mentor leaders, CEED makes sure you are fully prepared to help your mentees throughout the program. There is a training session in April where mentors learn the important aspects about being a mentor. During the training, the mentors are able to get to know each other to provide each other support throughout the program as well. Throughout the first ten weeks of the fall semester, mentors attend weekly meetings with their peer leaders. Here, the mentors go over the important information they will share with their mentees at their weekly meetings by going over the key details with their designated peer leader.

Applications to become a CEED mentor closed February 3, 2023, so congratulations to all the mentors this upcoming fall semester! To those who didn’t get the chance to apply, don’t miss out on the opportunity next year to help our incoming freshman transition to college life!

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Student Space-De Provides Unique the Future

Illustrations / Stella Shin 17 Engineers’ Forum | www.ef.org.vt.edu

esign Competition e Opportunity for of Science Article / Aine O’Reilly

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Virginia Tech offers a wide range of focuses for engineering students to pursue specific fields that cater to their interests and skills. Diverse specialities undoubtedly strengthen Virginia Tech’s robust engineering program, yet each student has a common factor that unites them all: the ability to dream big. The CanSat competition arranged by the American Astronautical Society (AAS) allows students from both across the nation and internationally to achieve exactly that. The annual competition is made up of entirely student competitors. Many college students can recall designs they have created as well as competitions they have participated in throughout the span of their education. The CanSat competition offers students a particularly unique opportunity to participate in a project that takes a design from a concept to a finished and functional product. In fact, it is described as a “design-buildlaunch” competition, which emphasizes its goals.

This particular competition is composed of teams who collaborate to design and construct a “spacetype system”. The designing and building periods span two semesters, allowing the students adequate time to develop and solidify their creativity and skills into one design. At the conclusion of the two semester period, the teams put their hard work to the test.

Each group faces off head-to-head to determine whose design will come out on top.

Each individual team must contribute the finances necessary to construct the design as well as any travel accommodations, only further proving the team’s dedication to the competition. They are not left entirely up to their own resources though, as AAS provides every competing team with their very own rocket to be used as an integral piece of their design. This is certainly not a privilege many other competitions feature, making the CanSat competition a sought-after educational experience.

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What space design competition that features rockets would be complete without its very own launch? To further solidify the CanSat competition as a truly unique opportunity, every year there are a series of days set aside for a launch.

This year, the launch will take place in Blacksburg, Virginia at Virginia Tech from June 8-11.

The name CanSat refers to the “soda can” sized satellite that each team designs and launches. After being released from the rocket, the device known as the “reentry container” must return to Earth with the assistance of a parachute. The science vehicle must be intact, and each vehicle is incomplete until a singular large egg is put inside. Upon landing, the final deciding factor is determined when it is revealed whether or not the egg remains undamaged.

For many students, the competition offers more than just an opportunity to interact with a subject they are passionate about. In a video produced

by CanSat, Jares Doverspike, a student from the University of Alabama Huntsville, said that the competition was “training the next generation of scientists, as well as giving you life skills that you wouldn’t have had otherwise.” Anthony McCourt, a student from Arizona State University, found the element of collaboration to be the most fulfilling, saying that “as an aerospace engineer, I got to work with mechanical engineers, I learned a lot of electrical, a lot of computer science stuff that I just don’t get inside of the classroom, as well as getting to network with people from all across the world.”

Since its beginning in 2004, the AAS CanSat competition has been inspiring students as well as the engineering world. Through its ability to foster teamwork, creativity, problem solving, and persistence, the CanSat competition allows students and the future of engineering to reach new heights.

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Archives @WUVT Studio

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Get your Hands Dirty: How and Why to Pursue Undergraduate Research Article / Adrian DiMarco

Have you ever considered getting involved in research? Maybe you want lab experience to give yourself a competitive edge when applying for internships or jobs, or you have some extra credits you want to fill. Perhaps you are just interested in learning more about your field of study, and think that joining a lab group would be a fulfilling and an effective way to do so. Whatever the reason, many students are interested in joining some form of research group, but feel like it would be too difficult to get in a lab with little to no experience or connections. Thankfully, that notion is not true.

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Office of Undergraduate Research Virginia Tech offers a wide variety of resources to help prospective undergraduate researchers get their hands dirty. The Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR) is the most prominent of these and offers several opportunities for undergraduates. They have office hours every Thursday for students who want advice for deciding which research opportunities would best fit their needs. Additionally, they are partnered with several research institutes within Virginia Tech.

Some notable examples include: the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute, which offers medical and biological research positions available to anyone from high school to graduate school; the Institute for Society, Culture, and Environment (ISCE), which seeks to address humanitarian and social issues; and the Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Sciences, which is renowned for its transdisciplinary research opportunities.

If you are interested in a change of scenery, one option you might want to consider is pursuing a research opportunity in another country. OUR is not only partners with institutes within Virginia Tech, but also research organizations abroad as well. Virginia Tech and the University of Nottingham, UK collaborate to provide engineering students with research experiences on sustainable systems such as ecologically friendly transportation or more efficient electric grids. There is also a team that travels to study some of the many diverse bat species in China every year through a partnership with Shandong University.

These are just a few examples of research opportunities abroad, as there are also others that are only available to certain majors or students in certain colleges. If you are interested in learning more about researching overseas, you can find additional information for specific programs on your university’s website.

Hume Center and other Defense Opportunities If you are an Ocean Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or Computer Science major, the Hume Center has both volunteer and paid positions in defense or security internships and research positions. While these opportunities are typically more competitive, it’s not unheard of for freshmen or students with little experience to get offers.

Cybersecurity, machine learning, space and under sea operations, and secure communications are some of the primary initiatives that the Hume Center focuses on. One student who is currently pursuing a position at the Hume Center has agreed to speak with us about their experiences.

Amirah Jones is a member of the Intelligence Community Centers for Academic Excellence (IC CAE), which is a federal program that is affiliated with the Hume Center. She is a freshman who knew that she wanted to make some kind of impact while also honing her technical skills. According to her, the IC CAE program has offered her an opportunity to do so. She says that while it is extra work, it doesn’t really feel like it because it’s something that she wants to do. In other words, her research doesn’t conflict with her other academics. One of the positives Amirah wanted to highlight was that the program offers her a lot of support. Many of the professionals that she works with guide her and teach her skills she wouldn’t have learned in her courses. One message that she wants to impart on readers is that people of more diverse backgrounds should feel more encouraged to pursue research.

One of the many things she’s learned through the IC CAE program is the importance of working with people of different perspectives.

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Mining Lab

Robotics Lab

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Other ways to get Involved Maybe you are still interested in research, but none of the positions we’ve covered so far appeal to you. That’s completely fine! The beauty of going to a research institution is that the majority of the research groups on campus are open to undergraduates even if a good portion of them aren’t well advertised. Most professors, if not all, are involved in some form of research regardless of what college they are a part of. This begs the question, how can you find projects that interest you, and how can you get involved in them?

Finding projects is simple: go to your college’s website, or on to vtx.vt.edu, and skim through articles that interest you. Virginia Tech newsletters and blogs routinely publish content about niche research teams that are active on campus and are a great way to scout out opportunities that appeal to you. Bookmark any that you would want to work on or that align with your interests and values. To get involved in any of the projects, draft a professional email to the professor or team lead cited in the article. While it might seem bothersome, remember that part of a professor’s responsibility is to find passionate students to fill roles in their team. However, only email professors with projects that you are serious about or that align with your goals or personal mission.

Final Words Research can be an extremely rewarding experience, and even though it might seem daunting, Virginia Tech offers significant support for undergraduate researchers. If it’s something you want to have in your college experience, there are several paths that you can take to get involved.

Goodwin Rolls-Royce Engine

Duck Pond Cabin

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Photo / Kiara Kulkarni

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Photos / Kiara Kulkarni

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