Hi welcome everyone. Hello happy Tuesday afternoon welcome.
Great, it looks like we've got lots of folks signing in, so I'm just going to pause for a moment or two until everybody is logged in successfully. Can you hear me OK?
Rebekah Barry
03:00:31 PM
Yes! We can hear you. :)
Sarah Verderame
03:00:41 PM
Hello everyone!! Welcome :) Jacqui we can hear you perfectly. - Sarah (she/hers)
Feel free to pop in the chat, say a quick hello. We've got a current student panel is well on the call today so feel free to say hello. Any student ambassadors if you want to drop your name into the chat and your major that would be awesome and then it looks like we've got lots of people from all around the country. So we've got Illinois, California, Colorado. Let's see what else have we got on here? DC perfect Hawaii. Awesome so fun to have you all here today. Thanks for making the time to visit with us.
Camille Milo
03:00:54 PM
Hi everyone! My name is Camille from Southern California! So glad you are here :)
Kate Boyd
03:01:00 PM
Hi y'all! My name is Kate (she/her) and I am a third year studying Chemical and Biological Engineering!
I wanna say very quickly a huge congratulations y'all are admitted to the College of Engineering so well done.
Rebekah Barry
03:01:03 PM
Denver, CO
Jack Emery
03:01:04 PM
Jack Emery- Incoming Fall of 2021
Michelle Hefner
03:01:09 PM
Hello everyone!!! My name is Michelle and I'm in my 4th year of Biomedical Engineering and Chemical & Biological Engineering here at CSU!
Great and it looks like most everybody is on the call now, so this is awesome so I'll officially get kicked off so my name is Jackie Goldring. My pronouns, are she, her, hers and I service the manager for undergraduate recruitment programs here in the Walter Scott Junior College of Engineering at Colorado State University. So that's a very long title, but essentially what it means. I'm your point person. Any questions that you might have concerns that you might have. Feel free to reach out to me as well as our whole team of engineering student ambassadors.
And I do have our email address here on this first slide. It's the Explorer at engr.colostate.edu. Please feel free give us an email if you want to set up a one on one chat with the current student email us will get that set up. We're really here to be a support system. Anna Network of resources for you. So without further ado, should we get into today?
What we're gonna do is a quick presentation where I'll do an overview of all of the majors of engineering, and I'll also be talking about our support systems at CSU because engineering is hard. It is definitely worth saying that out, right, but it has to be because there are going to be times as an engineer that you truly will have peoples lives in your hands. So we want to make sure that when you graduate you're prepared to enter the field safely. So with that rigor in that could challenge, you'll be faced academically.
You also have a support network here at CSU that's unlike any other, so we'll be talking about that support network, and then we're going to open it up for questions so we'll be joined by 4 current students across different disciplines to chat about their experiences at CSU. So if you have any questions, you can always drop them in the chat throughout the whole presentation, and then we'll answer those at the end. Sound good.
OK, So what does it mean to be an engineer? I bet a whole bunch of you here like to solve problems and that is essentially what it means to be an engineer. It's the way that you walk through this world. You've always got your critical thinking lens on and you're thinking about the world around you. How it functions systems that don't work, systems that do work? How do you make them better? What kind of change can you create? And engineers truly have a capacity to make a huge difference in this world.
And that's really exciting. And that's one thing that you'll find is a common trait among the students here at Colorado State University. And so when we're thinking about problem solving at CSU within our college, we really think about a focus on the grand challenges of engineering. Has anybody heard of these grand challenges before?
If not, this is your homework tonight. Go ahead, do a little bit of research. Just Google the grand challenges of engineering and it truly is fascinating. There's about 14 challenges that we're facing right now as an entire world, so these are global challenges, so it's things from clean water to cybersecurity, right? There's a huge breath of challenges that we face for our environment, for humankind, for food production, for cyber safety. So there's a ton of different areas in applications that engineers can apply their skills towards.
And so we're always working in this frame of grand challenges, and that's really solutions based. And so here at CSU we work very collaboratively and interdisciplinary, which is really, really important. Because when you graduate and you enter the workforce, guess what you are going to have to work with other people, and so it's really important to understand how to work with your teammates, how to work on a project together. What skills do you bring to the table? How do you listen? How do you communicate? When do you lead? When do you step back?
These are all wonderful skills that you will need to have to succeed as an engineer, and they're built into every bit of the curriculum here at CSU. So it's really the foundation we're really about building you up holistically as an engineer so that you're fully equipped to solve the problems that are facing our world and so collaborative solutions are part of your classes and then also our projects. And so a lot of times you'll find that you're working on big projects throughout your whole degree.
And what's really exciting is in your last year, you're going to work on senior design, so senior design is required of all engineering students and will be able to talk about this a little bit later when we invite our students to join us. But it's a real culmination of everything that you've learned over the last four or five years you get to solve a big problem in. Typically, these problems are brought to us either by industry or by research, so their research driven and so some of our favorite design projects from years past include our rocket team, and so this is our intercollegiate.
Rocket team it's a senior design project as well that continues year after year. So you're building on the successes of the team before you and we actually go and compete once the rocket is built. And so we were actually the first institution in the entire nation to compete with a liquid fueled rocket. And so our rocket team is pretty well known. And what's great about the rocket team? Is it really does demonstrate how you bring your skills to the table as an engineer, so you're working together to solve a problem, and you might find on your team you have a mechanical engineer.
Electrical engineer, a chemical and biological engineer, and they're all working on different facets of the rocket. To really build out the best design. And so that's a huge piece of the work that we do here at CSU. And the other piece of it is applied knowledge. And this is really critical because you, yes, will be sitting in lectures. However, you also have the opportunity to apply all of that information that you're learning in lecture during your labs or other projects that you undertake and applying your knowledge is really the way to embed it, so we don't want you to come to CSU.
And just inherit somebody elses knowledge like a professor or a researcher. We want you to truly be active in advancing the field of engineering, which is really exciting and dynamic.
Alright, so now I'm going to talk about all the majors in engineering and so this is a lot of information I'm going to throw at you pretty quickly, and so again, feel free to put any questions that you might have into our chat and we'll be sure to address those in just a short while here, so these are all of the majors. So since you are all admitted, you are probably admitted to one of these disciplines here. I want to note that you can always update and change your major, so there's a number of ways that you can do that. If after today you're like, oh, I really want to actually transfer over it.
And to mechanical engineering you email me. You go into your ram web. Either way, you can go ahead and update your major at any point.
Jesse Van Haght
03:07:44 PM
Hi! I’m Jesse (he), I’m from South Africa and can’t wait to start Environ. Eng. at CSU!!
OK, so with that let's get started. First, we're going to talk about bio medical engineering, so this is a really, truly unique program here. Colorado State University. We were the first Eva accredited institution to offer a dual degree in biomedical engineering. That, again, is another mouthful. So I want to break down a few things first. The first thing I said was a bet accredited. So this is really critical. Please wherever you are looking to go to school, ensure that the institution offers programs in engineering that have there a bad credit Dacian.
A bet is a board that goes around to different institutions to review their curriculum to make sure that core competencies are met throughout the degree in engineering, so that when engineers graduate, they're able to enter the workforce in a really safe way like we were talking about previously, and so employers will be looking for this, and this will be critical to your success as you professional engineer, so please look into a bad accreditation so the second thing that I said was dual degree. So this means that it is truly 2 degrees, which is awesome, so you will graduate its up.
Find your program, but you will graduate two bachelors degrees, so you'll have a Bachelors of Science in biomedical engineering and then you will have a Bachelors of Science in your partner major and you can choose from three different partner majors here at CSU and the reasoning behind this is because the field of biomedical engineering is super broad. It's a huge field. There's tons of different applications and what would happen and when we first started this school for biomedical engineering is we wanted industry feedback and a lot of the feedback that we received is like yes, students have a breadth of knowledge, but they don't have the depth. So we wanted to make sure to add that.
Steps to the program and you get that through your partner major and so the first one will talk about is electrical engineering. So if you partner electrical with bio medical alot of times your focus is going to be on imaging and scanning and diagnostics thinking through how to use lasers and optics as well for medical treatments. So there's a lot of really new technology that's growing and that's what biomedical engineers are focused on is advancing that growth of technology and innovation. If you choose to do the second partner major, the choices, mechanical engineering and students in this field.
Often interested in prosthetics, right like how does the body move. So think about biomatter materials bio mechanics and thinking about how to replicate that range of motion, possibly through a prosthesis, and then the third partner major. You can choose from is chemical and biological engineering.
Some students who are in this partner major are heavily focused on save pharmacology, thinking about tissue design, cellular research, and there's just a ton of different fields you can go into in a lot of different applications. Also, if you are thinking about a pre Med pathway, this program might be a really good one for you to consider, so you would still declare biomedical engineering. Dual degree is your major and then you would say yes. I'm on a pre Med track you would work with a pre Med advisor to make sure you're taking all your prerequisites to be competitive.
Competitive when it comes time to submit that application for Med school.
Alright, so next time talk about chemical and biological engineering at CSO of very unique program. We're one of two institutions that's a bet accredited in both chemical and biological engineering. This is 1 degree, so it's different than the one we were just talking about. This is 1 degree that you complete in four years and what's amazing is you are going to be competitive in fields that are traditionally associated with chemical engineering like oil and gas. Then once you had on the biological component, you really open up the whole opportunity in different fields and industries that you could potentially find employment in.
So once you add in that biological component, there's things like food processing, which is a huge growing industry, especially here in Northern Colorado. I don't know if any of you ever tried a Unicorn Frappuccino from Starbucks. I'm totally guilty of that, and it was terrible. It was salty, it was sweet, it was sticky, it was yellow, it was pink, it was green. It was all different colors. But I was able to ingest that drink and somehow make it to the other side and survive because I chemical engineer.
Chemical and biological engineer came up with that recipe and made it safe for human consumption, so there's tons of different jobs that you can do, including material science, pollution control, and maybe you want to work in cosmetics or pharmacology. Again, those all are open to you within chemical and biological engineering.
Next up, I want to talk about civil and environmental engineering, so this is 1 Department but two separate degrees. So you either study civil or environmental engineering and this Department is super well known around the entire world. We're in the top 20 programs globally for civil and environmental engineering, which is pretty impressive and a lot of that is due to our water resources program, so students, particularly studying environmental engineering have a focus on water and specifically water quality as we talked about one of the grand challenges right now facing our entire world.
Is access to clean water and so a lot of times environmental engineers are focused on that challenge in water treatment thinking about also site remediation is a big one. Then if you're looking at civil engineering, you're thinking about large scale structures. So things that typically shouldn't move like bridges and roads and tunnels. You might be thinking through city planning as well, and maybe you want to be on construction sites making sure that buildings are structurally sound. That's all a part of a civil engineering degree.
The next Department we're going to talk about is electrical and computer engineering, so again, it's one Department, but two separate degrees. You either study electrical or computer engineering and what's really cool about this Department worth mentioning is your job employability. So when you're going to school, you know part of the goal. There is definitely to land a job after graduation. Within this Department, we have 100% placement rate.
Which is pretty impressive. That means that literally every single student who graduates from ECE or electrical and computer engineering has a job and oftentimes they land this job even before the beginning of their senior year, so that that this goes to show you how big this field is and what demand there is for electrical and computer engineers. I don't know about you, but I've been astonished by the whole demand of an way that we interact with computers. So over the last 20 years, the way that we interact with computers is completely changed.
20 years ago, maybe you interacted with one computer on a daily basis. Now it's five to six computers, right? 'cause we think about our phones are actual computers are houses. Our cars are watch is literally everything we touch has to do with the component of electrical or computer engineering. So definitely a job guarantees are really, really important in something that you would get within this field. So with electrical engineering, you're really going to be focused on the hardware side of things, so electrical components, products and systems, then on the computer engineering side where it differs is you kind of are a blend between both.
The hardware side typically associated with electrical engineering, but also you get into the world of software so that kind of bridges over to computer science. Computer science is a totally different major in the College of Natural Sciences, so it's not even in the College of Engineering, so it's definitely a different program, and computer science is really solely, you know, you're coding your programming. You're on that software side. However, when you look at computer engineering, you get to bridge both of those worlds of hardware and software, which is really exciting and makes you truly competitive in the jar.
The job market and there's a number of different industries that you can go into, whether it's robotics. If you want to go into aerospace. If you want to go into software engineering cybersecurity literally, the world is your oyster Ann on here on this side you're going to see our eco car, so we participate in the Ecocar challenge, which is also a senior design project, but it's down to our students to take this car. So a Chevy here and got the whole thing and get it to run at zero emissions. So really, electrical and computer engineers.
Are critical in the success of this team and because of the different components that are used to make the car run at zero emissions.
So Next up, we're going to talk about mechanical engineering, so mechanical engineering is definitely our largest program within the College of Engineering. We have about 1/3 of our undergraduate students in this Department. Mechanical Engineer is a fantastic degree because it gives you such a wide variety in such like different skills that you can apply to a number of different industries. So you really become a Jack of all trades. Honestly, as a mechanical engineer, I really to boil it down to the basics. Mechanical engineering is all about how things move, so thinking about objects in motion in that whole flow of energy.
And there's a ton of different ways that you can apply this, and what will happen throughout your curriculum is programs are structured to be four years in mechanical engineering, so your first couple of years, or you're building your foundation so you're getting all the necessary skills under your belt to be able to progress through the program and then take what are called technical electives, and these technical electives are the classes that truly connect you to where you see yourself in industry, so you might say, yeah, I wanted I want to work in engines. You can start to take classes that will directly connect you to industry and give you the skills that you need to be competitive.
Within that specific field we also have a brand new concentration in aerospace, so that's super exciting. And so in your third and fourth years you'll be taking classes that specifically relate to the aerospace industry and will give you the skills that you need to be competitive in that job market. And Colorado is really big in aerospace as well, so the other thing that will talk about a little bit later is internships, 'cause that will really help to supplement all the learning that you do on campus and give you a real world application as well.
So Next up I want talk about engineering open option, so if you're totally overwhelmed 'cause that was so much information all at once, we do have what's called engineering open option and this is a great choice if you're not sure yet exactly what kind of engineer you want to be because there's a lot to consider. And if you come in as an open option student, you're still admitted directly to the College of Engineering and you have access to all the support and resources that we're going to talk about next, and you get to take a class in your first semester called Inj 101. The grand challenges, which now all of you, I'm sure.
Sarah Verderame
03:17:53 PM
Feel free to throw in any questions you might have in the chat! We will be answering some pre-planned questions during this panel, so if you have anything specific you are wondering about please let us know!
It's in 'cause you've been Googling with the grand challenges are, but there you focus on those 14 challenges and you think about, hey, how would this kind of engineer approach this problem? And then you get to discover what is your method of thinking? How do you problem solve? What do you want to do? What part of the equation do you want to solve? And so it's a really great way to gain more information and just really make an informed decision before then committing to your discipline, which typically happens in in the second semester of your first year.
OK, so we're going to switch gears here just a little bit. Since you all are admitted. I did want to talk a little bit about next steps here, so feel free. You got plenty of time to figure all of this stuff out and again know that we're all here to be resources for you. But the next steps really include confirming your decision in pain, or deferring your deposit to CSU. Then you want to apply for housing. Apply for financial aid. Sign up for orientation before you come for orientation that our placement exams.
And then at the end of your school year, make sure to send in your updated transcripts and there are going to be health requirements that you have to complete. And all of this will be outlined on your Ram web as well. So feel free to check out your RAM web and then either contact us or the Office of Financial Aid if you have specific questions.
But I want to talk a little bit about the opportunities that engineers have specifically on campus for living and learning together. 'cause as I mentioned, engineering is hard. There will be challenges ahead for sure, but that's where the excitement is as well, because that's where you can really build your skills, your knowledge base, and really understand how you function through challenges, which is really critical to the success of any endeavor that you take on. So if you were thinking about coming to CSU, I would highly recommend that you consider.
Living with other engineers and so we have what we call our engineering residential learning community which is based over an academic village which is a cluster of a couple of residential halls as well as a dining Hall. And then we have one specific call for first year engineering students and on this in this building you will find a lot of different resources and support systems when talking about support. One of the things I like things I would like to mention is that we have pure mentors, so connecting with the current student at CSU, who's in engineering is really critical.
'cause they can help you navigate the ends and outs of you know assignments. Maybe you need help on Matlab, whatever it might be, they can be your point person. So we hire mentors to connect with students and really start that relationship early on. Also we offer tutoring Sunday to Thursday and this is tutoring specific to engineering. So each night is dedicated to different discipline. So Sunday might be for chemical and biological engineering. If you are a chemical and biological engineering student, go definitely. My motto. Tutoring is always go early, go often.
And what's so amazing is these shooters are students as well, who had just successfully finished these classes and and really, they're able to impart knowledge in a different way. So we all want to expose ourselves to multiple perspectives, especially when it comes to learning new information and knowledge, because your professor might explain the concept one way, and then you're like what I don't get raises going. And then you meet with a tutor who is able to break it down in a way that's more digestible and that's really beneficial to your success as a as a student. You know throughout.
All your time at CSU. Also, it's really good to have somebody there when you're first learning. How do you study at college because it differs from high school and we also do walk in advising hours. So if you want to meet with an academic advisor, we have a faculty member who lives in the residence Hall as well. Doctor Bonnie Roberts is from the mechanical engineering Department and she often plans activities and events as well so that you can start to build relationships and networks across campus and then the really cool thing is there's huge resources that are at your fingertips.
The whole bottom floor of the engineering residential Hall is a computer lab and you have access to that 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and so you can go down to those computers and all the software that you'll ever need throughout your whole degree will be loaded on there. You can also remote desktop into those computers so you can access it from home, and we have printers as well, so wherever you find computers, you're going to find a printer we have at collaborative workspaces and study halls as well so that you can start to build your own study groups. And again, this is just a really great way to build community and be supported. Motivate yourself and others.
Here the whole year. So something to consider. Also, Please note that you don't have to live in the engineering residential learning community in order to access all of these resources so you can live in a different Hall and then still come over and take advantage of these resources and another place to live is key academic. So this is an incredible community is well built up as students who are focused in engineering and the great thing about key communities is it's focused on serving underrepresented students. So in engineering, if you are a first Gen student, if you are a student of color.
If you are a woman in engineering, if you are a Pell eligible student right, you're traditionally under represented in the STEM fields in general, and so with engineering key. Community provides a space to live in to learn with other engineers and connect to mentors on campus, so this cluster is led by Doctor Anthony Marchese, who is our associate Dean, Anna First generation college student himself. And so he understands some of those challenges that students face, especially in that first year. So this is an additional level of support and connectedness that really is critical in that first year at college.
So I want to have a little bit about tutoring as well. Again with tutoring. Go early, go often. This is really important as we talked about, we have tutoring over an academic village. There's also tutoring available to students across different disciplines, so you will be required to take some general education classes as well as you know, your calculus in your chemistry in your math and science courses, and there's multiple tutoring options across campus. Some of my favorite include the Institute for Learning and Teaching. Also, we have the calc center.
We have the Native American Cultural Center as well, which provides a ton of tutoring resources for current students across campus. So just definitely no you have the resources in this support to see you through a whole engineering degree.
A little bit more about our office, so I'm not home right now, but typically I'm in the engineering success center and this is your place to go if you are a student in the College of Engineering. This is the front door come in CS if you have any questions, concerns anything like that, we can help address them. And if we don't have the answers were definitely connect you with somebody who does so out of our office. We run a number of different services and I always really like to mention first and foremost we offer a connection to current students through diversity programs.
In engineering, so our diversity student organizations are very active on campus here at CSU. And so these are active chapters of national organizations like ship our Society for Hispanic Professional Engineers, and we'll get to talk with the President of Ship in just a few moments here, her name is Michelle and she'll be able to tell you more about the initiatives in the community that can be found if you participate in ship and so another organization is necessary. The National Society of Black Engineers. We have sweda Society of women engineers.
And the list goes on, and so these are organizations where you can connect with current students on campus in the College of Engineering and start to build your network as well. Nationwide, alot of times these organizations focus on a couple of things. Professional development and outreach and that's critical to your holistic approach to becoming an engineer. So professional development. A lot of times organizations will bring in professionals from different industries to come and talk to you about hey, we have these job openings or hey let me do a resume review for you.
Also, there's an outreach into the community, so to get younger generations excited about engineering and show other students this is possible.
They really incredible way to engage with community as well, and so again with these national organizations. Oftentimes you'll find that you're able to go to national conferences, so if you become a leader in one of these organizations, you might go to a national conference, meet somebody who will serve as your mentor for the rest of your life. So these are really transformative clubs, and I'd highly encourage you to lookout for them as well. Also, we have our engineering residential learning community that we talked about prior. All of those services are run out of our office. If you have questions about that, we can connect you to the professionals.
Jeff, who helped to manage the residential community, also a huge thing for us is our career services office. So this is centralized here in the College of Engineering to serve engineers because the way your resume looks as an engineer is very different than, say, a communications major, and it's really important. We have the office, the resources to help review resumes, do a mock interview an every year. We host two career fair specifically for engineers, which is really exciting 'cause I can connect you to an.
Internship to Coop to a full time job and so that's a really incredible opportunity because csus fortunate to have a huge Career Center that serves all of the students, which you can always undertake their services as well and go to their career fair. The nice thing is you always had engineering specific resources at your fingertips which is exciting and just worth noting that nearly 90% of our students will complete at least one internship before graduating, and oftentimes students will find these internships through the Engineering success center.
So you've got people on your side who can connect you to industry leaders, which is very exciting 'cause you want to know that you're going to get that real world experience in your undergraduate degree.
So a little bit here is, well, I'm talking about funding and you learning a little bit of money here during your studies. And it's a huge investment that y'all are getting ready to make in your future. So attending an institution of higher education is expensive. And really, what we're very fortunate in the College of Engineering to have a number of scholarship opportunities to help offset that cost of tuition. So if you look at the numbers we were able to award 433 scholarships last year, which totaled over 1.8 million dollars.
So that's an incredible way to help pay for school and these scholarship opportunities are all iaccessible through the CSU scholarship application. This is really critical since you all are admitted students. I hope you've heard of this CS USA before. This is open now. It does close on March 1st and it's a general application to all the scholarships offered at CSU. You'll feel a general application 1st and then there is actually engineering specific application that you will have to submit. So really important to know.
Carter Bechtel
03:28:39 PM
Are there any downsides of doing open option?
Kael Singer
03:28:42 PM
I missed the part where she talked about switching majors. How would one go about that?
Don't forget to do it March 1st will quiz you at the end of the day.
And in one scholarship I want to make.
Replug before we head into our Q&A. Here is our Walter Scott Junior Scholarship and so this is a huge opportunity and for not only a scholarship but also a community. So the Scotts colors are really active community of students here on campus. And so Walter Scott, the namesake of our college isn't a long of CSU. He graduated as a civil engineer and went on to work as a CEO at Q It. And so he's a pretty awesome guy. He has donated a lot of resources to support.
The UP and coming generation of engineers. And So what that means is we've been able to create scholarship opportunities. So there are 20 merit based scholarships for first year incoming students.
Right now we do not know exactly how the eligibility criteria will look because we are waiting to hear from the Office of Financial Aid. If you are a Colorado resident and get the highest green and gold so that $4000 scholarship, you will be eligible for the Scott Scholarship. If you are a nonresident student and you were awarded the $10,000 presidential Award, then that would make you eligible for this scholarship as well. So we have 15 awards for Colorado residents, 5 for $21,000.
10 for $6000 and then we have 5 reserved for nonresident, including international students for $15,000, and these are renewable, so that's every year and there is a requirement to keep. At least, I believe it's a 3.0 GPA and be enrolled in the minimum of 12 credits every semester, so exciting stuff wasted. Think about funding your education as well.
Brenton Yasuoka
03:30:47 PM
Is the walter Scott Scholarship included in the CSUSA
Kami Hinderberger
03:30:47 PM
When does the housing exemption open up for incoming freshmen for fall 2021?
And before you went to the Q&A, I do want to say this whole team here is here to support you. So this is our outreach and recruitment team. And so all these current students and smiling faces are here for you. Just on the other side of the screen. So now that we're here, whatever questions you have, I know this is such a hard time to navigate the college search process since we're unable to physically bring you to campus right now. But we want to share as much information as possible with you and connect. And whether it's here or on a one on one appointment.
And also quick plug for social media. So follow us on Instagram and we do a lot of student takeovers and share information on there that's really relevant to the student experience. So our handle is at CSU engineering on Instagram and then the exciting thing Now let's bring on our student ambassadors for some introductions and then we will happen to all of your questions.
Would you OK? Fantastic, it's wonderful to see you all today. Let's get started with some introduction, so if you would let us know your name, your pronouns, your year, your major where you're from, and then if you could tell me your favorite coffee shop in Fort Collins and we'll go Sarah Camille, Kate, Michelle.
Hi everyone, my name is Sarah my parents. She her and hers. I am currently a fourth year studying biomedical and mechanical engineering here at CSU and I am from conquered California and my favorite coffee shop always is cups and it's like little bit far away from my house and I just go and sit in their attic.
That, and it's just amazing pre covid of course. But thanks for being here.
Anaston Gaerlan
03:32:11 PM
Is the Walter Scott Scholarship stackable with other merit scholarships?
Shannon Tyler
03:32:12 PM
Would you suggest joining greek life while studying engineering?
Carter Bechtel
03:32:13 PM
what are the requirements for the presidential scholarship
Well hi everyone, my name is Camille. I am a fifth year studying chemical and biological and biomedical engineering. My pronouns are she, her and hers, and I'm originally from Southern California, which is where I am right now and fun fact I'm actually allergic to coffee, so I really like Dutch Bros. And I literally have made my own drink there. So 10 out of 10 recommend.
Colby Rupp
03:33:02 PM
Do you know anything about how the general merit scholarships will be determined this year?
Hi everyone, my name is Michelle I go by she her hers and I'm in my 4th year studying biomedical engineering and chemical and biological engineering and let's see my favorite coffee shop right now. I would say is this place called Wolverine Farm kind of near Old Town. It's really nice. Scott Outdoor seating and it's just really beautiful to catch a sunset in that space.
Awesome, thank you all so much for being here today. So we've got some great questions in the chat that we're going to hop right into. So we're asking about are there any downsides of doing open option so coming in open option is a really great plan, especially if you're still trying to decide which major you want to pursue. There are specific department's that will accept the image 101 class as the introduction to their specific discipline, because as an engineer you start in your intro to say your chemical and biological you started.
Ella Varga
03:34:04 PM
Are first years guaranteed a spot in the engineering dorms?
Sure, to chemical and biological engineering or introduction to mechanical. If you come in open option, you'll take Engine 101 and a lot of times you can substitute that for your intro class, but not every Department does that, so sometimes it'll be just a wee bit of ketchup, but it won't set you back. You'll still be able to really graduate on that timeline, and so whether that's your four year timeline or five years, if you're a file, medical engineering and a partner degree, so no downsides really. Does anybody want to talk about open option a little bit?
I can a little bit, so I actually did not do open options, so I do not speak from personal experience, but I just speak from what I've heard. I will say open option like Jackie mentioned, is a great opportunity and option for you if you really just have no idea what kind of engineering that you do want to get into, because that class specifically highlights all the different challenges that engineers face in the world. In what type of engineer will is mostly responsible for each challenge. Additionally, I feel like from what I've seen.
The professors office hours are used to be in our office where we work and I would always see his students come in and he would just have a really good.
Connection and relationship with each of his students. It would guide them through that process of deciding your major um, so that usually that class is usually one semester your freshman year or your first year, and then after that semester you choose what engineering discipline that you really want to go into. Something that I would like to mention in Jackie can correct me if I'm wrong, but now what the first year students are allowed to do is if, let's say I am a mechanical engineer and I'm in my first year.
Emma Camp
03:35:50 PM
Do first year students have to live on campus?
Class and I'm like don't know if I really like this. Electrical engineering also looks really cool. I can talk to my advisor and we can talk about me if I have some space next semester taking an introduction to electrical engineering course instead, and from there I can still be in the mechanical engineering major, but sample electrical engineering and from then I can actually choose what major I want to do for me. That's something that I probably would have done if I if that had existed when I came to school just so I was still in a major that I knew I want to do.
But I could choose another one if I found that to also be suitable for me. But if you have no idea, engineering option option is a really good option.
Yeah, and it just depends on space availability, and that's going to be the most important thing. So you could take like if you're admitted to say engineering open option. You take your engine 101 and they're like, but I'm also really interested in mechanical. You could if there is space, maybe take that Mac 103 class so it's all dependent on classroom space and availability. But yeah, it's a great way to kind of sample and make a really well informed decision as well.
Kate Boyd
03:37:08 PM
Ambassador email: explore@engr.colostate.edu
Awesome, so the next question is I missed the part about him switching majors, so how would you go about that? You can do it a couple of different ways, so if you are already admitted to the College of Engineering, you can go into your RAM web portal and request a major change. The other thing that you can do is email me or the explore engineering count and we can update that for you on the back end as well. So I will make sure to drop that my email in the Explore email at the end of this chat so that you have that. So it's very straightforward to do if you are already admitted to engineering.
If you are admitted to a different disciplines of hearsay in the Warner College of Natural Resources, and you're looking to come into the College of Engineering, we would have to go ahead and review your application holistically because we are competitive major. So there's a few additional things that we look for when we review, especially your academic record in your personal statement, in your letters of recommendation based very straightforward, especially if you're already in the College of Engineering, and you can always change your major in your first year as well without any problem. You know if you're like, yeah.
I'm starting in CB, but I want to change to Mac. You can work with an advisor and get that done. You can always change it down the line as well. Just one thing to keep in mind is the further you get into your degree, the more classes that you will have to make up to, you know, get your graduation timeline squared away. So the sooner you kind of figure out your pathway, usually the best you know if you're working on a tight timeline, but there's always flexibility and like the academic advisors are going to be best resources, they are awesome and can help you navigate that process.
Did anyone have anything to add about changing majors or anything?
Next part is on is the Walter Scott Scholarship included in the CS USA? Yes it is.
Please fill out this. Yes you would say like I can't say that enough it's do win.
Kate Boyd
03:38:39 PM
March 1!!
Exactly, so please don't forget to do this on Kate. Do you want to talk a little bit about the scholarship experience and maybe offer some pro tips on filling out the CSS USA?
Jacqueline Goldring
03:39:18 PM
Here is the link to the housing exemption: https://housing.colostate.edu/halls/request-for-exemption/
Jacqueline Goldring
03:39:47 PM
More info about the CSUSA: https://financialaid.colostate.edu/csu-scholarship-application-csusa/
Those are awesome tips and tricks. Does anybody else have any tips and tricks for scholarships you'd like to mention?
Perfect OK, one thing I do want to mention is so this cycle is definitely a little bit wonky, so we're waiting right now to hear from the Office of Financial Aid in the Office of Admissions on how they will determine merit based scholarships, because in years past it's been that we've used the your GPA and then your test scores, but since we're test optional we won't have the test scores this year, so we're trying to figure out what the awarding process looks like.
Carter Bechtel
03:42:13 PM
Is there a benefit to submitting the csusa early?
The Office of Financial Aid will publish that as soon as possible. I believe their goal is before the end of this year and then what we will do in the College of Engineering is if you are eligible for this Scott Scholarship, we will notify you. So keep an eye on that. Keep checking the Office of Financial Aid website and contact your admissions counselor if you have any questions about those merit based scholarships. There are automatic consideration, merit based scholarships that we were talking about like the green and gold for Colorado residents and then presidential.
For non resident students, so one of the questions I just going to pop down. Just skip one really quickly, but the Walter Scott Scholarship is stackable, so if you have the $4000 green and gold Colorado Merit based scholarship, you stack that with the Walter Scott Award each year so it's renewable. So four years for almost degrees and then five years if you are in the dual degree.
Yeah, and Sarah has something here.
I'd like to add that most of the scholarships that you can get through the CS USA are stackable. However, one for all of my will be folks. If you do get the presidential scholarship that is not stackable with Louis however, you if you get the presidential in the Walter Scott Scholarship, those two can stack on tooth on top of each other. Just one thing to know.
Yep, and it's 'cause it's with presidential and we it's one or the other so you can't have both of those. Yeah, and they just do whichever one is the higher dollar amount. It defaults to, so you may have the eligibility to get the presidential award, but since you already got Louie Louie's worth like a little bit like $60.00 more year then presidential, so you'll get the the WUI. Since it's worth more dollar amount.
Oh, I'd also like to add, I don't know how true this is, but I have read also that so I got the presidential so I don't have Louis. I've also read that because I'm a 55 year double major student will be only counts for four years, so I'm really happy that the presidential will actually be awarded to me my entire time. I'm here at CSU, so just another reason why aiming for the presidential Scholarship is a good goal.
And I think they've changed up movie now to be able to cover, so you should be covered for those five years since it's intentionally A5 year program. Not that you're expanding a four year program over five years, and that's that's written into the agreement and understanding between the Office of Financial Aid and then our College of Engineering. So that should be all good to go if you run into issues. So let us know.
Great so I wanted to go back here to another question about the housing exemption, so I went ahead and I dropped a link to the exemption form and you should be able to submit that now the way exemptions are for housing work is you do have to reside in one of those dedicated post codes or zip codes at the bottom of the page there, so make sure to review those zip codes before submitting the form, but you should be able to submit that now. An housing application. I'm not 100% sure if that's quite open just yet.
Everything's a little bit on a delay this year, so thank you for your patience.
Uh, OK, let's get to some more questions here. Would you suggest joining Greek life while studying engineering? So I don't know if we have any. Any folks who are necessarily in Greek life right now, but can definitely talk about. And we've had a lot of engineering students participate in Greek life. For sure, Camille, did you want to talk about balancing extracurriculars and engineering and what that looks like?
Yeah, so I would wreck kind of I'm going to do an over arcing.
Sort of this question. I would recommend joining anything that your heart desires. Truly, it's kind of the answer I have had so many friends in Greek, like Greek life and they absolutely love it. For me personally, I have worked two jobs on campus. I'm the president of IS PE. I know everyone on this panel. We all participate in different things and so that's kind of my answer to that is yeah, as long as you're like you understand kind of user first, you're intentionally, especially if you are looking to join a student organization both.
In engineering and non engineering or joining Greek life really use your first year to kind of understand who you are as a student and when you work best for me, I've realized that I work best first thing in the morning like I need to workout at like 6:00 AM and then I need to go do homework and then I can take my nap or do whatever leisure like later in the day. And so as long as you kind of know and understand yourself that way like joining student organizations, joining Greek life, working Jobs will you'll succeed in that as well as doing engineering.
I figured we lost connection for a minute. I'm sorry but I'm just really wanted to hear from you a little bit as well and being involved in so many organizations in as we talked about the President of Ship. Do you want to talk about your involvement on campus and how that really contributes to your overall success as a student?
Sure, yeah, I'd love too. So um, honestly like it wasn't like I, you know, just showed up to the organization meeting one day and was like, yeah, I'm gonna be president one day it was more like I just, you know was looking for things to get involved with and I really enjoy like volunteering, especially doing like STEM outreach for K through 12 and like just you know, increasing stem awareness to underrepresented communities.
And you know things like that. And so I went to this one event that was in Loveland nearby town of nearby Fort Collins an we did like little demos and like science experiments for really young children and there was a lot of fun just seeing them. Just get really excited over. You know things that you look simple but you know there's a lot of science and theory to understand. You know how these things in our world work. And so I got more and more involved with the organization. Until you know, there's a point where I became.
Part of the board, and then eventually I became president, and so I think just one of the biggest things is.
Is to think to share the passion that you have with those around you and inspire the younger generations to do the same. And so that's really what drives me in, you know, ship. And yeah, I would kind of what drives me and motivates me to do other things as well. I'm involved in undergraduate research, which is a lot of fun and same thing there like I love talking about my research. I love sharing it with like other people and I love just the whole concept.
Of communicating like really, you know complex, you know difficult, rather difficult things to other people. To show them that you don't have to be super smart or super powerful or anything to do anything that any of us do. You just be yourself. And if you love something, do it. And so, yeah, that's that's truly what getting involved on campus has taught me.
Camille Milo
03:49:17 PM
Snaps Michelle! yes!
That's such good advice, y'all. Seriously, and 'cause those are the things that are going to fill up your Cup. 'cause as we talked about, there are going to be hard nights where you're up until three and studying. And like finding those things that really fill you up and motivate you. That's what's going to keep you going. And also like these are things in memories and connections that you're going to take with you passed graduation. So do all of the things.
I said OK, so next question is what are the requirements for presidential scholarship? So again, we're waiting on the Office of Financial Aid, an office of admissions to make those decisions. I'm sure that office of Admissions will notify you as soon as they have an update as well, and then we're responsible for notifying you about the Walter Scott Junior Scholarship eligibility, so hopefully by the end of this year is when I think the kind of goal is to know those requirements for merit based scholarships like the presidential.
And so again, like yeah, the next question is about the merit based scholarships as well. So fingers crossed sooner rather than later. I'm so sorry. I know this is stressful 'cause this is like one of the huge factors. Of course, going into your decision. But people across the nation universities across the nation are experiencing similar issues and so I think if you can take any of that stress and pressure after yourself, please do. I would empower you to do that and know that things will eventually be determined. You will be able to.
Will do the CS USA scholarships. Will still go out. It might just be a little bit later than usual, but you have time like you have plenty of time and again if you have, you know concerns or issues. You can always reach out to us and we can talk through those. But if I can take any of that stress off of you, please let me. There's already there's so much stress going on right now, so I hope this can maybe give you a piece of mind that things will workout and we will have that information to you soon. But sorry it's not not available at this time.
General question is there like a website that students can check that they get like these updates or if they just keep clicking on the CS USA Financial Aid website, will that just give him the updates?
Jacqueline Goldring
03:51:16 PM
https://financialaid.colostate.edu/scholarships/
Yep, so if you I'm going to drop a link in here and this is the financial aid website so directly linking two scholarships an this is the page that I would check and then I don't know exactly the communications that the Office of Admissions has planned, but typically with big news like this they will shoot you an email that will go to whichever email address you have on file with the Office of Admissions in addition to those two resources, you're going to want to check your Ram web portal because you will have scholarship notifications posted there.
As well, so just know that you have multiple platforms to really check on this information and always our email is in here. Kate dropped our explore email account so email us like we're not experts in financial aid or scholarships or by any means, but we can definitely help you like, navigate and just check on your scholarships. And if we can't answer it, we're going to direct you to the Office of Financial Aid but just know like you are not alone in it and I would definitely say like.
Check it, hopefully sometime in January. I would say realistically is hopefully when those awards would be announced.
Yeah, great questions y'all.
OK, so our first years guaranteed a spot in the engineering dorms. So with the engineering residential learning community there are a limited number of spaces, so our recommendation would always be if you are interested in living there to go ahead and submit that application for housing sooner rather than later. And I was just checking the housing website and it looks like they're going to publish the application in mid January, so keep an eye out for that as well and then you'll want to put your top five choices on your application for housing.
We also manage a wait list as well, so if you don't get into the housing over an academic village straight away and you might be able to reserve a space through the wait list as well. Just does anybody want to talk about their experience living in academic Village? Michelle, Kate. Any of you want talk about Evie?
Sure, yeah. So I came in as a transfer student, which is kind of important to note because I had the option to either live in a residential community, which in this case I lived in academic Village, or I could find something off campus. So I was transferring from the East Coast, so I knew absolutely no one here in Fort Collins or Locali. When I when I transferred, and so it would have been like, really, really hard to find a place off campus with like, you know, roommates that I would trust and all that. So I opted to live in academic Village, and I think it was really really beneficial.
I immersed myself in the campus culture and with other students and peers on campus. And you know, had I not taken that option. Or had I not done that? It probably would have been pretty hard to make friends and find, you know, study and like kind of commutes to campus and you know off campus, but not to say that it would be impossible. It would just be a little harder and absolutely there's nothing wrong with that, but it just, you know it really facilitated my transition into CSU and it was really nice because academic Village does have like a really nice computer lab. That's right.
There either, depending on what building you live in right, it could be either be downstairs from the main engineering building or just like a 30 second walk from the buildings around and so it's really convenient. I mean it's open all night. I definitely remember a lot of long nights studying there and you know it's it's it's safe. It's nice, it's quiet, and yeah, the computers are you new and it's very clean and yeah it's it was really really amazing and I'm glad I'm glad that I did opt to.
Live in the in those residential halls.
Awesome, thank you, Michelle.
So just a quick question about deferred shoes have to live on campus. So typically yes, there is a requirement to live on campus. And just as Michelle mentioned, like this is a great way to connect directly into Community build that support network really have that encouragement on those late nights studying and cramming for exams. But there is an exemption. We dropped the link in the chat earlier, but you do have to live in one those designated zip code so it's based on where you live is well for the exemption and then you have to submit a form that goes through the housing office for approval.
But that does happen definitely. So, especially like say you live in, you know, Fort Collins and you're like I'm just going by to campus. You know when I need to be there? That's definitely unfeasible as well. I would definitely say if you live off campus for your first year, make sure that you do participate in some extracurricular activities to really build that community and connectedness to campus. And then I got one more question here. So is there benefit to submitting the CS USA early? I would say nothing for at least engineering for our scholarship committees like we're not going to look at it until.
After March 1st, so it's not a first come first serve kind of priority basis. It truly is based on the content inside of your scholarship application, so I'd say spend as much time with it as you can, but don't miss the devil.
And so it's it's really a fine balance.
Camille Milo
03:56:26 PM
Great questions! Thank you for those! :)
Anything else from students on that, like you know, we put our email in here so you can. Also if you want us to have a quick people for your scholarship essays and send him over to us, we're not. You know, we're not the editing pros or anything, but we can definitely give you a bit of perspective as well. I would say have at least one person who really knows you well. Look at it. Whether that's a teacher or mentor appear, whoever it might be have then read it and then have somebody like you know one of us who's you don't know us right. And like we can kind of.
Sarah Verderame
03:56:53 PM
Thank you for asking questions everyone! We know choosing a college can be a lot right now. If you have any more specific questions, feel free to email us: explore@engr.colostate.edu or text me at ?(720) 580-1589?.
Give you an objective opinion as well and offer some feedback, so send those to the Explorer email account if you would like. No pressure too though at all. I'm just going to check if there's any last questions here 'cause we're wrapping up on time. OK, I don't see any other questions, but I want to talk to our students about a device so some students here are like Camille is getting ready to graduate. She's got a wealth of knowledge here, you know. And so I want you to talk to students, students who have gone abroad.
Sarah Verderame
03:57:13 PM
No ? ^
We've had different experiences. You've got a really great group here to give you some advice, so each of you ambassadors, if you could tell your younger self when you're going through a college search process. One thing.
What would it be? So what would you tell your younger self and we will go Sarah, Michelle, Kate, Camille?
Serious thinking, do we want to go Michelle, you got one?
Where Michelle's going? OK, I'll go, I'll go after.
I'm always ready for this question.
So if I could give just one little tidbit of advice, it would be definitely, um, like at in this, you know, I say this from the bottom of my heart from my experience as a transfer student, kind of like not having a great experience. My first year of college and then deciding to look elsewhere for, you know, something better. I would say just really, you know, recognize the fact that it's going to be you on this campus. It's going to be you taking the classes. It's going to be you. You know, having some struggles here in there. It's going to be you having.
Jacqueline Goldring
03:58:27 PM
Please reach out with any other questios: jacqui.goldring@colostate.edu
Great accomplishments and all of that, so just try to put your happiness and like you know, think about the environment that you're going to be in before anything else you know maybe oh, this camp is so beautiful he's these residence halls were built this year. Oh this and that, but just, you know, when it comes down to it, make sure that you're happy and that you know that if you know you're struggling or if you're succeeding that you're going to really enjoy where you're at and the people around you.
Yeah, I was actually going to say something along those lines, so I'm glad Michelle that you said that. 'cause especially I think one of the big themes in engineering also is that like Jackie said, it's hard but.
That weight on your shoulders is so much lighter when you're actually passionate about it. So kind of along with.
Yeah, really great advice. You all. My advice is actually something that I wish I had done, and it's right. The reason that I'm doing my major on a little piece of paper and like they never let that piece of paper go. Um, I think with engineering it's really hard to kind of get that overarching view of why you're doing this major. As everyone has said on this panel like engineering is hard and so I think sometimes if you just look at this piece of paper that might be frayed or might be a little bit over that kind of reminds you of.
Kate Boyd
04:01:31 PM
That's adorable :)
Two things, your passions, and again, like where you've been like, how, how far this journey has taken you from your first year to your fifth year. And yeah, for me, like I especially on my 5th year, I keep looking back and I'm like wow I have done so much for the call. Like with the College of Engineering Student Master all these things. And yeah, I'm graduating so it's just something that I think is kind of sentimental but also super helpful and nice hearing.
Oh, that's wonderful. I wanted to say a big thank you to all of our current student ambassadors for joining us today. So yeah, it's always great to hear y'all an again. For anybody looking to connect further, email us at the Explore account and we can set up one on one appointments or anything that we can connect with you, whether it's over text message over the phone, over video chat. Just know that you have people on the inside who wanted to see you succeed no matter where you end up going. We want to see you succeed and be happy in your future because as an engineer you truly are going to change this world.
And that's an incredible thing. So with that we will go ahead and sign off for the day. I do urge you to take some time over the next few weeks to really look after yourself and look after your loved ones. Look after your community as well and rest, please.
Kate Boyd
04:02:53 PM
Go Rams!!
Enjoy the rest of the day and go.