Winter 2019 IDEA Newsletter

IDEA

Engineering Student Center Winter 2019 Newsletter

Photo by: Erik Jepsen

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Awards The following students have been selected as recipients of the 2019 Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Award for their demonstrated passion for learning and giving back to their communities through service and/or leadership. Each student received a $1,000 award.

Elizabeth Farkas, Sophie Huang, Brea Torquato, Martina Mitose, Arielle Yoo, Jasmine Ng

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Travel Grant!

The following engineering students received travel grants to visit Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on February 7th, 2019.

Brandon Hernandez-Pacheco, Candelario Caldera, Arun Chumber, Vivian Chiong, Noe Melchor, Guillermo Nogueira, Xochilth Saldana, Jasmine Chiang During their visit to LLNL, they toured various facilities, met with engineers and scientists, and learned firsthand about the various career path choices available to them.

Here’s a testimonial from one of the travel grant recipients:

“I think everyone had a very positive experience. It was such an empowering feeling being around people who had the same dream at some point and are now fulfilling it. Perspective is everything and I strongly believe the trip gave us all a bit more confidence towards obtaining a PhD and research.�

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DECaF

DECaF, Triton Engineering Student Council’s (TESC) annual student-run career fair, brings UC San Diego’s 8,500 talented undergraduate and graduate student engineers the opportunity to engage with companies looking to fill permanent or summer positions. This year, TESC successfully catered to over 1,200 students and 45 companies. Thank you to all recruiters for your hard work and your support for our students!

Envision

This year, the 11th annual Envision High School Conference took place on February 2nd and had an attendance of 135 students, and 60 parents. Envison is UC San Diego Society of Women Engineers’ free all day high school outreach program, aimed at empowering and encouraging women to pursue studies and a career in STEM. The students had the opportunity to participate in two hands-on engineering activities, hear from two keynote speakers from IBM and General Atomics, interact with project teams on campus, an interactive presentation about getting to college and engage with professors through a panel.

Running concurrently with the program is a parent program, where the parents of the students have the opportunity to interact with a student panel, engage in presentations from a speaker on gender roles and a presentation from the financial aid office.

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Enspire

On January 28th, 2019, Triton Engineering Student Council (TESC) hosted 260 middle school students from underrepresented groups for a day of engineering at UC San Diego. TESC’s annual Enspire outreach event aims to get students interested in engineering who might not have access to the resources at their school or in their community to do so otherwise.

The day started with an engineering activity where students got firsthand experience designing a bridge-like structure to hold weight spanning a certain distance. During lunch, they met some of our current engineering students who answered questions these middle school students may have and talk about their college experience in an informal setting. Enspire concluded with various engineering student organizations demonstrating some of the cool projects that they work on and activities to engage students in real world examples of engineering.

This program is a great example of the various outreach activities that engineering student organizations organize to break down some of the barriers middle or high schoolers may face in pursuing a career in engineering or higher education in general.

Graduate Roadmap

The UC San Diego chapter of Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) held it’s 2nd annual Graduate Roadmap on February 9th, 2019. With the goal of empowering underrepresented students to pursue graduate education in STEM, speakers from School of Engineering at UCSD, UCLA and USC covered various topics ranging from an overview of graduate school, to graduate application, and funding opportunities.

Representatives from top engineering schools around the country participated in a graduate school fair, where they got to talk to about 40 SHPE students about their graduate programs.

At the end of this day-long event, 71.4% of students who completed a feedback form indicated they felt “Extremely” more confident in their ability to become a graduate student after attending Graduate Roadmap.

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Industry Board Member Spotlight

I earned my Bachelors of Science degree in Electrical Engineering in 1998, from UCSD. Upon graduation I accepted a full-time Design Engineer position at Metaflow Technologies. While working full-time, I attended UCSD grad school and earned my Masters of Engineering degree in 2001 (also in Electrical Engineering). I found it to be challenging balancing both my career and graduate studies. But, it was very rewarding to be able to further my education and apply that new knowledge to my career.

As an undergrad student at UCSD, I was an active member of SWE and SHPE. I served as Vice-President of UCSD SHPE chapter, where with the help of my Board Members, we founded the Student Outreach Program that is still going strong 20+ years later! It is now known as “Logan Outreach” mentorship program. I am very proud of all the UCSD SHPE students that continue to dedicate their time as mentors in this program and that continue making it successful.

Judy Alvarez-Gallardo Class of 1998 and 2001 IDEA Center Industry Advisory Board Member

Also, participating in these student clubs helped me gain leadership and communication skills that gave me the extra edge to win a

scholarship and internship from Hewlett-Packard. It was exciting to work on Hewlett-Packard’s first ever digital camera and on printer circuit designs. That internship provided an invaluable experience that solidified my interest in an engineering career.

After twenty years of working in industry as a Senior Design Engineer, I am now teaching engineering courses at Southwestern Community College. I am passionate about engineering, circuit design, robotics and also mentoring students that are interested in STEM fields. So naturally, the next step was to combine my passions and teach engineering! Inspiring the next generation of engineers is what strengthens my commitment to my career as an engineer, teacher and mentor.

My words of advice to students is to seek what you’re passionate about in engineering, and that will give you purpose. It will help you be a better student by focusing your energy on that purpose, it will give you a reason to keep learning and to be successful in your career.

| Fall 2018 IDEA Newsletter

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