Hello hi welcome hello everyone, thank you so much for joining us today.
Alright, this is great. Folks are tuning in. Happy Tuesday afternoon. I hope you had a lovely day so far. I am just going to pause for a quick moment or two until everybody gets logged in successfully. But thank you so much for being here today. I'm so excited to chat a little bit more with you all this afternoon. So yeah, I'll just pause for another second or two here.
Alright, so looks great. We've got folks joining us from Cala Rado from Washington is well, great. Well thank you for being here everyone.
So OK, well, I'll go ahead and get kicked off with my official introduction. So my name is Jackie gold ring. My pronouns are she, her, hers and I serve as the manager for undergraduate recruitment programs. Here in the Walter Scott Junior College of engineering at Colorado State University. So essentially what that means is I'm your point person. Any questions? Concerns anything you want to know more about that's related to engineering at see if you get in touch with me. I'm here to help so my email is on this first slide here and I'll be sure to drop it in our chat later today as well.
So if you would like to engage with us further after our web and are today, we would love that. So if you want to set up a phone conversation, a video chat if you want to go on a live virtual tour, just email me and we'll get that all connected for you. So before we kick into the presentation, I want to give you a quick overview. So today we're going to be really focused on student involvement within the College of Engineering, 'cause it's important to say Yes, Engineering is hard and you'll definitely need to do things to fill up your Cup, right? So things that make you happy that keep you motivated?
Engage and that's really important to your overall success, not only as a student, but as a human being. So we'll be talking about all those extra curricular activities today. At first I will start with an overview. All of our majors within the College of engineering as well, just to give you a little bit of context and background. Then afterwards, after we wrap up the presentation, will move into a Q&A session with our student ambassador team. So will be joined by three engineering students who will be here to answer any of your questions. And then the way that you submit questions is just through the chat feature.
Not feel free any point in time throughout the presentation. If you have a question, comment anything like that, drop it into the chat and will be sure to address that. So we get started. Do you wanna let me know what you're interested in? So feel free to put into the chat feature there if there's a major that you're most interested in, or maybe an activity organization, something that you want to know more about and will be sure to address all of that today in our presentation. And just as a heads up, I am working from my Home Office and so welcome to my home. You might hear a little dog bark. My dog Martin has been a little barky today.
Alyssa Yates
03:02:59 PM
Environmental Engineering
Jack Miller
03:03:16 PM
Electrical Engineering
And also if you lose connection if for some reason My Internet fails, I'll be sure to pop right back in awesome. So it looks like we got some interest in environmental engineering. Cool will feel free to let me know what else y'all are interested in. I'll be sure to spend more time on that when we get to the presentation. So Are you ready? Should we get started? Let's Go Alright. So let's talk about engineering overall. So when we think about engineering at Colorado State University were heavily focused in problem.
Solving so as an engineer, you're probably a born problem solver. You walk through this world. You see how things work, or maybe how they don't work and you think about how to fix them. So that's essentially what every engineer does and the way that we think about problems is in the context of the grand challenges of engineering. So if you are not yet familiar with the grand challenges of engineering, I would definitely encourage you to do just a little bit of research online. 'cause it truly is fascinating. There's about 14 different challenges that we are facing right now, and these are global issues.
So is everything from clean water to cybersecurity, so there's a wide vast array of problems that we're facing right now globally, and it truly is engineers who have this capacity to create great change. So the skills that you will learn in your schooling will set you up for success to enter an industry and make a difference in people's lives. And that's a commonality that you'll find among all the engineers here at Colorado State University. Is that real drive? To make a difference to leave your mark on this world? To create a legacy and leave the world better than you found it?
And so we also think Auriel Auriel lot about collaboration and so collaboration is key in engineering. Because guess what when you graduate and you enter the workforce, you're going to have to work with other people and honing all of those skills now is super important to setting you up for success. So understanding how to communicate with one another win to lead, when to step back all of that information is super valuable, not only in your time in education but beyond. So we collaborate on a lot of different things and that might be from homework assignments to projects.
Because projects are huge piece of the puzzle as well. So projects are built into every facet of our curriculum here at CSU. So your first semester that you start in engineering here you're gonna start in your intro to engineering class. So if you're signed up to be a mechanical engineer, you're going to start and met 103 introduction to mechanical engineering. So you are straight into it. You are getting that practical knowledge straight away so that practical knowledge comes in the whole fashion of applied knowledge. So it really means that you get the opportunity to apply what you're learning in your lecture. So all that.
Theory you have hands on application about, so that's really important, so that might be through projects, or it might be through lab components that are associated with your classes that you take, and those projects are built into every step of the curriculum. So from your one all the way towards graduation. So in your final year at CSU as an engineer you will complete what is called senior design and so this is a huge project that you work on for literally an entire year with a team of other engineers. So these projects are typically big problems that we're facing.
And these problems are brought to us either by industry or their brought to us through research. And so students work together to come up to solutions for these problems. And some of these amazing teams continue year after year. So these are really long term projects as well. So one of my favorite ones is definitely our eco car. So Ecocar is actually a competition that's at the national level. It's sponsored by GM and they give us a car and we assemble a team of engineers here at CSU. And there's institutions all across the nation that also participate.
So we assemble engineers and then they work on this car to do a complete rebuild and they get it to run at zero emissions, and then the teams get to go and race nationally, and so that's a really great collaborative project and you also find that quite often engineering is interdisciplinary. So on this team for Ecocar you'll find Electrical Engineers, Computer Engineers, Mechanical Engineers all working together to bring their expert knowledge to the table and come up with the best possible design. So teamwork is definitely at the heart of all of that as well.
So we like to say teamwork makes the dream work, and that's because it's true. So working with one another, understanding your strengths, your weakness is understanding how to work with a teammate is super important to doing a fantastic job as an engineer.
So now what we're going to do is a quick overview, an I mean quick because we don't want to get to the question and answer session so we can answer all of your questions so, but what I'm going to do is overview all of the majors now and go through these one by one. If you have questions about any particular major, feel free to drop those in the chat and I'll be sure to answer those. So buckle up. I'm gonna throw a ton of information at, you know.
Alright, let's start with biomedical engineering. So biomedical engineering at Colorado State University is a truly unique program. We were the first institution to offer, and a bet accredited program that is a dual degree in biomedical engineering.
As a mouthful. So what does that mean? So the big one there is a bit accredited, so Eva is the accreditation body that goes around all of the institutions across the whole nation to make sure that engineering education is up to the standard that it needs to be in order to graduate successful engineers. So they're making sure that you meet all of these core competencies so that when you enter the workforce, you're able to do so in a Safeway, because as an engineer there will be times when you truly have peoples lives hanging in your hands, so we have to make sure that we're giving you the skills.
So that you can do your job successfully.
So the other thing with a That is we want to make sure no matter where you go to school, but the institution is a bit accredited. We just had our accreditation in October 2019, so fairly recently, and that's good for another six years now.
So the other piece that I said was dual degree, so that means literally like it sounds, you get 2 degrees with biomedical engineering, so you pick out biomedical engineering, Anna partner major and the reason why it's structured this way is because when we first started this school for biomedical engineering, we asked industry partners for feedback and said Hey, what can we do to make sure that our students are more competitive when they graduate and one thing that they said to us was there needs to be greater depth because biomedical engineering this super broad, it's a newer field and its vast.
And so we were lacking that depth in our curriculum. So by adding a partner major, you're able to get that added layer of depth so that you truly have expert knowledge. When it comes time to graduation and entering the job force. So there are three partners that you can choose from. The first one is electrical engineering, so if you choose electrical engineering to partner with biomedical alot of time, students are focused in image ingane scanning and medical diagnostics. So when I say image Ng, I'm thinking through things like ultrasounds or X Rays, mris? Thinking through that technology and also how do we make that technology safer?
And because right now you know a lot of times, you're introducing radiation to the body, which isn't super safe. So how can we make these processes better and more efficient to protect human animal life? The second partner major that you can choose from is mechanical engineering. So with the Mechanic.
Engineering you're thinking about how things move so in the Roma Biomedical. How does our body move? How to animal bodies move? How can we replicate that and maybe think about building out prosthetics are working in biomaterials and then the third partner major that you can choose from is chemical and biological engineering and so chemical and biological engineers are really focused in really a lot of Pharmaceuticals. You're thinking about R&D. Maybe cell cellular research as well, or you want to go into possibly consulting and it's really worth mentioning that says you can definitely do a pre.
Landon Hiley
03:10:59 PM
what does "cap currently in place mean
Med track so if you are interested in going into medical school after you complete your undergraduate degree, you can pick biomedical engineering and not get a lot of the prerequisites that are required for for your medical school application and then also get connected with a pre Med advisor as well. And I've got a great question here. So cap in place so right now mechanical engineering does have a capacity limit to it because there is a great demand for mechanical engineering, so students looking at bio medical.
And Mechanical Engineering one applied early and the same goes for mechanical engineering, so apply by that early action deadline if you can, which is December 1st, great question.
Someone had to the next one here, so chemical and biological engineering. So with chemical and biological engineering, this is 1 degree at CSU and it's truly unique because it is one of two programs in the entire nation that's a bet accredited that offers chemical and biological engineering. So yes, you can still go into all of the fields that you would associate with a typical chemical engineering degree. So if you want to go to oil and gas, you're gonna be ready to do so. Then when you add in that biological component, you really open up all of your opportunities for employment for research and anything else that you might be interested in pursuing.
So a lot of students are going into multiple industries, so you might go into, say, process engineering. You might go into Pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, abig, one for us here, up in Fort Collins is food engineering, so we're really lucky to have an awesome brewery here as a microbrewery called New Belgium, which was one of the first micro brews in all of the States and so we have a great Co op program established with them and a Co op is where you actually stop out of school and worked full time for an employer. And so you work for an entire year with New Belgium and you cycle through.
All of their different units and learn how the engineers function across the board there. So you learn a lot about food engineering and process engineering along the way, and a lot of times because they're investing so much time in you as an employee, they'll turn into full time job offers as well.
So Next up is civil and environmental engineering, so this is 1 Department but two separate degrees here at CSU. So you either studied to be a civil engineer or an environmental engineer. In this department's really world renowned, and so we're really known for our water resources program, which lives within environmental engineering. So environmental engineering is really focused on water quality, so we talked about those grand challenges and clean water is a huge one of those. So thinking about water contamination in water treatment.
As well and how to get clean water to different communities so it's a big focus with environmental engineering and then with civil engineering, you're focused on very large scale projects, so huge infrastructure, so roads, bridges, tunnels, all traffic management, city planning and things like that. So there's tons of opportunity for you to engage and within this Department again, we're globally known. And so right now we're in the top 20 universities around the entire world for civil and environmental engineering.
The next step is our electrical and Computer Engineering Department, so this Department again is really well known and also really, really great job security associated with either of these degrees. So again, you study either electrical or computer engineering, and right now the placement rate for students with either of those degrees is 100%, so that means 100% of students who graduate in this Department have a job lined up. So a lot of times they get that job offer even before the start of their senior year or right before they graduate, so that's a really great indication of the demand within our nation.
For electrical and computer engineers, so the way that we interface with computers has changed drastically in the last 20 years. So if you think about it, I know I have like my watch, my phone, my computer in my house, everything runs off of a computer, so this is a really great opportunity to find a job that will give you great security and so with electrical engineering. So again there are two separate degrees. Electrical is going to be focused really heavy in that hardware, so they need their electrical components, products and systems. And then when you get to computer engineering, if you're looking at that field, it's a really great balance between that hardware and software side.
The hardware side that you'll find associated with electrical engineering and then the software side that's typically associated with computer science. So it CSU computer science is actually outside the College of engineering, so it's in the College of Natural Sciences. But there is some overlap with Computer Engineering, so a lot of times you're able to complete a minor in computer science without really having to take many additional classes. Sometimes zero additional classes depending how you pick out your technical electives, which will talk about technical electives here in a minute. The great thing with electrical or Computer Engineering is the number of industries you can work in.
So there's a ton of different areas on if you want to work in robotics. If you want to work in software design. If you want to work in aerospace, you can be set up for those jobs with this degree.
So Next up is mechanical engineering, so mechanical engineering stuff. We are most popular program and so that's why there is that capacity limit. So we want to make sure that we're able to serve students as best as possible. So that's why the cap was implemented for mechanical engineering, and that means we can admit a certain number of students every single year. And we have worked really hard though to hire a whole bunch of new faculty and staff within the mechanical engineering and Engineering Department, so none of those classes that you're going to take will be over 80 students, which is awesome. But anyways, back to the degree with mechanical.
Is mechanical engineering is all about how things move. So thinking about objects in motion so that has a great deal of application in a number of different industries. So this is a really great degree where you really become a Jack of all trades. So it depends where you want to work in where you see yourself. But what's great about this program is your build up your foundation in the first couple of years and then you'll pick out what are called technical electives in your last two years. And so these technical elective classes really connect you to where you see yourself working after graduation.
So they can help to give you that hands-on experience, give you talking points when you maybe go for an internship or job interview and really get you the opportunity to apply the knowledge as well that you've learned throughout your degree. So technical electives can connect you directly to industry, so you can even do like a concentration. So we just introduced an aerospace concentration within the mechanical engineering Department, so you would pick out technical electives that are all aligned with.
Aerospace engineering and then you would graduate with concentration. There you can also pick out technical electives that are going to be in robotics or engines controls wherever you see yourself working, you're going to be able to find a pathway and carve that out for yourself at CSU.
Alright, so that was a lot of information about majors. If you're feeling overwhelmed or if you're starting at CSU and you're like, yeah, I know I want to be an engineer. I'm just not sure exactly what kind of engineer that's totally OK come in as an engineering open option student. So this means that you are still admitted to the College of engineering and you're going to have access to all of the opportunities and resources that will talk about in a minute. And you're going to be able to take a semester to figure out exactly where you want to study for the rest of your time at CSU. And so in your first semester, you take a class called.
End 101 the grand challenges.
Which sounds familiar by now, but you're going to cover those 14 challenges and you're going through how each kind of engineer would really solve these problems. So the way that electrical engineer versus a mechanical engineer approaches the problem is going to be very different. So you're going to get a really great in depth introduction to each major so that you can make a really well informed decision when it comes time at the end of the semester to declare your major, and then you also work with an academic advisor who will really help you navigate that pathway as well, and we host an all majors fare as well throughout the semester.
So that's a really great place to meet all the advisors in different students from each Department. To learn more about each program. So again, you're making a really well informed decision.
Alright, so let's switch gears here, just a little bit. Now that you have some context and you know about the majors, let's talk about ways to get involved. So these are the things that we're going to talk about a little bit more in depth here before we get to our student panel. So we're gonna talk about connecting to community straight away, and one way to do that is definitely to live in to learn with other engineers. So will talk about some living situations. Also, we can talk about joining organizations, so we have some amazing student organizations. So first, we'll talk about our diversity student organizations, and then we'll talk about all of our engineering.
Landon Hiley
03:19:13 PM
Can you still double degree in 5 years if you come in as 'open option'?
Societies and clubs. And then we'll talk about ways to get involved on campus through student employment. So first up is our engineering residential learning community, so this is a great way to plug into a network of other engineers straight away. So this is an opportunity for you as a first year student to live in academic village, which is a cluster of different housing and facilities. So residential halls and dining Hall that sits on campus and there's a specific Hall just for first year engineering students. So we call it engineering.
And that is a place where you can choose to live there. Great rooms, they're all suite style an on that first floor of this building. You're going to find a ton of resources, so some of those resources I always like to mention include our computer lab. So the whole first floor of your building would literally be a computer lab, so you're able to access that 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And there's also printing there as well, and on these computers are going all the software that you'll need throughout your whole degree at CSU. And you can also remote desktop into those computers to access that software at anytime.
Wherever you might be located, an in that space, we also host a lot of really great support services, so straight away you can get connected to a mentor. Also, we offer tutoring and this is probably the best thing about academic village engineering is. You will find tutoring that is specific to every discipline of engineering offered Sunday to Thursday and so you can go to your specific night and get help on assignments through your engineering classes. So here is civil engineer. You might want to go on say Sunday night and you're going to find a tutor there who is just recently finished that.
Class the intro to civil engineering class and they're going to be able to breakdown the information for you in a way that differs from, say, your professor. So your professor might explain something one way, and you're like that doesn't click, and then you go and meet with another student and they're able to break it down in a way that's really digestible. So go to tutoring. My motto is go early and go often for sure. Also, we offer walk-in advising hours so if you ever have questions or concerns, you can go see an advisor during that time as well, and we even teach some classes in this building.
So you might be lucky enough to roll out of bed and go to class straight away. You can even show up in your pajamas to class.
So another place to learn and live with other engineers is called key academic, and so we have a key academic engineering community, so this is a cluster of students who live in, learn together, and so you live in usually Brayden Hull. It might change around campus as well, but you live with other engineering students and then you also take seminar classes and you're connected to a peer mentor as well who went through key the year before and key is led by Doctor Anthony Marchese, who's our associate Dean here in the College of engineering.
And he was a first generation college student himself, and the whole mission behind key is really to connect underserved and underrepresented students to their resources at CSU because engineering is hard. And coming to the University and having to navigate this whole system is very challenging. And so this is a way to get connected straight away to all of those resources and find a mentor. Not only a peer mentor, but eventually doctor marchese who can be your point person, not just for that first year but throughout your whole time at CSU.
So next step, I do want to talk about some of our organizations here. So first up is our student diversity organizations. So these are active chapters of national organizations and this is a great way to not only foster community at CSU, but beyond. So this is a great way to extend your network at the national level. And so these organizations offer meetings on campus. Right now they are virtual, but there's still very active and so you would go and connect with students in engineering. And then you also a lot of times.
They offer professional development opportunities. So say ship for instance. This is their Society of Hispanic professional engineers. Alot of times their meetings are not only going to be a social event but also to do with professional development. So they might bring in an industry leader from Lockheed Martin to come in and talk with you. I'll connect with you, talk about if they're recruiting students for internships right now or what to do to make your resume stand out and then the other piece of it is. They'll also do outreach to the community so they host events to really engage with middle school and high school students to get them excited about.
Engineering, so there's a ton of opportunity is not just to build up your community at CSU, but really beyond campus as well. And so again, these are just a few of these are five most active organizations right now, so we have OST and we have Nestle, which is the National Society of black engineers suite, which is Society of women engineers and tons of opportunities to get engaged from literally the first day you step foot on campus.
These are just a few more engineering specific societies, so each major is going to have their own society, so you see, the American Society of civil engineers, so that will be for every discipline. So you might have the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and so on. So those are national societies that you can get involved in an. Again, this is a great way to engage in professional development and gain some leadership skills as well. 'cause you might be able to serve as an officer on one of these organizations as well, so that gives you a really great way to boost up your resume.
So some other ways to get involved is definitely student employment, so find a job in the college so you're just about to meet some engineering ambassadors and so this is a fantastic way to definitely earn some money and to connect to the mission of the University and get people excited about engineering. So there's a great opportunity there. You can also look at becoming a mentor, say for the engineering residential learning community or tutor, you can become an RA residential assistant. One of our halls. You can become an outreach team ambassador, so there's tons of ways for you to look for job opportunities.
And definitely I would encourage you to work on campus, because campus employers really understand that your school comes first, so we can be really flexible with your schedule.
Alright, next time I do want to talk a little bit about our engineering success center, that is where my office is typically located and this is the hub of the college. This is the front door, so any questions concerns anything like that that you may have. You can come and see us so we're located in the spot bio engineering building on the 1st floor and so this is really where you would come to get connected and we talked about all of these services except for career readiness. So you're going to school, right? And you want to make sure that you're going to be prepared to enter.
The workforce successfully, so we can really help you do that. At CSU, we're super fortunate to have a general career services office that serves all of the students at CSU and then within engineering we have an engineering specific career services. So it's located in the success center and we do mock interviews, resume reviews. We host two career fairs every single year and these career fairs are for engineering students in particular, and so this is a great way for you to meet with recruiters who are hiring for internships, Co OPS and full time jobs.
And it's worth mentioning that nearly 90% of our students will complete at least one internship in engineering prior to graduation, and many students do multiple internships, so you could even land an internship in that summer between your first and second year. The way that you do is go to career fair. Be prepared, ask questions you can meet with the recruiter and ask them to give you a checklist. What do I need to do in order to get an internship with you next year? And they will give you those steps and often times these are the same recruiters coming year after year to our career fair.
Seeking to start to build that relationship with them as well.
So just a little bit here. School is expensive and so it's a big investment that you're getting ready to make, but I want you to know that this is truly the best investment that you can make because you are investing in yourself and you are investing in your future and that impacts not only you, but it impacts your family and your community as well. So at CSU, within the College of engineering, we are fortunate to have a number of scholarship opportunities to help to offset that cost, a tuition so that you can graduate with minimal financial burden.
And so last year when you look at all of our numbers, we awarded 275 undergraduate scholarships and that amounted to over 1.2 million dollars. So that's a really great thing to know. All of these scholarships are accessible through the CSU scholarship application. So definitely a great opportunity to apply for scholarships here.
So before we switch into our question answer session, I do want to put a quick plug into our Instagram account, in particular on social media. If you want to get peek inside of the life of an engineer, it's easy to follow along and find us at CSU Engineering today we're doing a takeover and featuring the president of switches. This Society of Women Engineers. So Teresa is doing an awesome take over today. If you wanted to have a keep at that.
We're all here for you, so I know this is a strange time and we're not able to physically bring you to campus. But please know you do have a whole team. All of these people in front of you on the screen here are here to help you and support you along the way. So reach out at any time to contact us if you want to chat further one on one or comfort to work. Anything we can do to help know that we are here for you. And with that I want to start going into our questions, so I'm going to have our ambassadors go ahead and broadcast their videos here.
And Whilst y'all are doing that, I'm just going to answer this question here. Can you still double degree in five years if you come in as open option? So if you are looking at maybe doing the biomedical engineering degree after you have one semester completed at CSU as an open option student, you can as you can play catch up. So you might have to take some summer courses to kind of get back on track in regards to finishing in that five year timeline. But it's definitely doable. So thank you for that question, all, righty. OK, let's meet our ambassadors.
Here so ambassadors hello welcome.
I want to hear from each of you a quick introduction of who you are, your pronouns, what you study, what you're you're in, where you're from. And then also, I want to hear your favorite location to study on campus, and we'll go, Sarah Connor, Kylie.
How everyone my name is Sarah. I am a fourth year studying biomedical and mechanical engineering. I am from the Bay Area, California. My parents, she, her, hers and my favorite place to study.
On campus, it probably has to be Scott bio, which is our newer engineering building and I think you hear from a lot of other engineers as well. We lived there just 'cause it's a really nice Sicilian at super new so.
Great, my name is Connor. My pronouns, are he him, his? I am a third year studying chemical and biological engineering. My favorite place to study is probably also going to be Scott Bio Engineering. Some of the design studios where we have the giant walls that are whiteboards or always a great time. So yeah.
Hi everyone, my name is Kaylee and my pronouns are she, her and hers. I'm from Honolulu HI and I'm in my 4th year studying computer engineering. My favorite study space on campus is probably the BC info. It's in the older engineering building, but it's really awesome collaborative space and it's right in between the two ECE hallways. So everyone in my major typically ends up there to study.
Awesome, thank you so much. I'm Connor. Where are you right now?
I am in the BC and Phil actually will be more empty than normally would be here, but yeah, still nice.
Thank you so much for joining us and for our viewers. Please do pop any questions that you might have for us in the chat and we're happy to answer those to get us started though, I want to hear from everyone on the panel. I want to hear about. Why did you choose to come to CSU an why have you stayed? And so I'm gonna switch out going to Kylie Connor and then Sarah.
Awesome so I chose to come to CSU because I kind of.
Had visited a lot of schools in my time as I was kind of looking around an I was really torn between a small school because it had a lot of qualities like smaller class sizes better teacher to student ratios more of like a close knit community and I really liked the idea of a larger school because of the amount of resources that a large school can provide you for an example. My brother went to a small school and he only had one dining Hall on campus at CSU there's like.
That's kind of kind of that thing, and I when I first stepped up campus at CSU, I absolutely fell in love because I got this sense of community that you would normally find on a smaller kind of campus at a school that has 30,000 students, which was really strange. But I loved everyone that I had met on my tour, and while I was kind of walking around campus and the campus itself was really pretty. And then I stayed because I found that that.
Same thing about the community was true to an extent where I felt I was the most supported I could be in this engineering program. Then at like other universities for what I was looking for in a school like I've had professors who give me their home phone numbers and I've had TAS that work with me for an entire day on a weekend just to get my lab done. And so it's that kind of support and community that you'll find that I found I find helps me succeed.
Jacqueline Goldring
03:32:09 PM
Here is a quick tour of our labs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ccTgtNpVis
Yep, so I was born and raised in Colorado and I grew up to a family of Engineers. Kind of figured that engineering was going to be the place for me and I wanted to stay in Colorado. Just 'cause I love to ski and mountain bike and I just love the people here in the state. So I went into all the tours for Colorado. I did mine's a bit bolder. I did here and really I kind of like I was saying I felt most at home here. Everyone is super relaxed and knife.
Jacqueline Goldring
03:32:54 PM
Also, if you would like to connect more with the departments check out our upcoming Engineering Exploration Week: https://www.engr.colostate.edu/future-students/engineering-exploration/
Always people playing Frisbee out on the integral fields, things like that. I had talked to friends of mine who went here and they all loved it and they thought their professors and community was just really supportive on that. Same know the reason I've stayed is because of all the amazing opportunities and people that I've met here. I've had the opportunity to do a lot of research as an undergrad, which I wasn't expecting to be able to do. I've made a lot of great friends. There is great mountain biking.
Near Campus, the professors have been really supportive and just think we're all here. We all have the same sort of. We're in this together mindset and it really helps you day today, so that's why I'm saying.
Yeah, that's great. My college search process considered consisted of me knowing what I wanted to major in, but not really knowing where I wanted to go yet for school. So one of the reasons or one of the things that I get asked a lot by underclassmen, is how do you know what major you want to do and what I really say is, well, you don't. But you gotta figure it out. So go job shadow or go talk to people. So I definitely was able to actually get in contact. I was very fortunate to get in contact with someone who works in the bio medical industry.
And then I actually job shadow them. About three years ago, four years ago and just kind of saw their day today. What a biomedical engineer really does. Things like that. And it definitely just sold me so as of right now, you know, I think obviously none of us can really go in and job shadow, but at least maybe talking to someone getting a little virtual tour. Kind of like this. Things like that could really help cement that idea that, OK? Yeah, this is the major that I want to do. And then I chose CSU because I saw that they had biomedical and mechanical engineering as a double.
Degree for five years and I thought that was just a great deal in mechanical engineering. Is actually super super cool. I'm very happy I did the two majors.
And the reason that I've stayed is because of the community. I actually I work from home a lot. I do all of my classes online right now, but what's really great is that my friend and I actually went to a really cool outdoor rec class, which is kind of our on campus gym and we just did cycling outside. Obviously falling all covid rules and masks on and stuff. But we were all outside just on the IM fields and other people were playing around and people are outside still and like still enjoying each others company and.
It just was so wholesome and nice to see and be on campus again that it just was like This is why I'm here. Like Csus outdoor. You know culture and everything like that is just awesome.
Alyssa Yates
03:35:23 PM
Did any of you have an original engineering path, but decide to go down another?
Thank you all so much for sharing. I definitely agree and that sense of community is really powerful and super important as an engineer in particular 'cause you will definitely need to lean on each other throughout your whole time at CSU and beyond. Because right like we said in the beginning, engineering is definitely a team sport. Alright, so a quick question here is did any of you have an original engineering path but decide to go down another? I feel like headshaking here let's hear from Kylie and then we'll hear from Sarah. It looks like Connor was pretty set.
So my story is actually kind of interesting. I was a dual degree biomedical mechanical engineering major for about a week after I got accepted into the school and then I quickly changed my major to computer engineering before the school started, so I don't know if I would really count myself as a mechanical engineering student, but for me, one of the things that was a factor that changed my major in that short span of time was I also applied.
To the honors program and I was a little bit nervous about multiple degrees and the honors program at the same time.
But I was also doing biomedical mechanical because a lot of people that I knew kind of assumed like Oh Engineering like mechanical or some version of mechanical is pretty typical. Like you should be pretty set, but I didn't really know like actually what in mechanical engineering was really interesting to me and so during that time I had also been doing some research about like what each major could do in like once they graduate in terms of job and.
I found that like what computer, electrical and computer engineering does, is really interesting to me, but also a super applicable just because everything is computers nowadays.
So that's kind of why I ended up changing my mind and I'm really short span of time, but I really liked the decision. I made an as you can see I've stuck with it for four years, so.
Cool yeah I have a lot of thoughts racing through my mind. One thing I do just want to add. I have a friend who his first semester started out as a civil engineer next semester. Freshman year changed to mechanical engineer and now he's in electrical engineering and he loves it. So if you do come in and you wanted to change change because if you're not happy then it's not going to go well and he loves it. He's here for five years now instead of four, but that's because you know he was just changing a lot but he's having a ball so definitely do not stress if you don't know what to do.
Another thing I want to say is.
You know, I think this question could go a lot of different ways. There's engineering major and those engineering path, so I guess that can kind of lead in to talk about Louisville intern ships. When I first started, I want it to be a mechanical engineer and a biomedical engineer. So usually when we think of mechanical engineering, people think, oh, you're working with like.
Computer automated design so you know SolidWorks. Autodesk had things like that that you're designing on a computer and that's what I thought too. And that's what I really wanted to do, so that's what's called a design engineer. So actually got an internship with Caterpillar this summer after my sophomore year. And that's what I did. That whole summer was design engineering and after that summer I realized, Oh Heck, No, I do not want to do that. Designing on computers. Fun, but it was literally sitting there 24 hours a day and I just couldn't do it. Not 24 hours between 8 hours a day.
So this past summer actually changed to manufacturing engineer, which is a what a lot of Mechanical Engineers go into. Just a different field and that was amazing. You know I got to be on my feet. Talk to the operators, do different stuff and I like that a lot better. So in that aspect I changed my engineering path or my engineering field I guess would be a better word and that's totally fine as well. And that's the whole point of internships and or research. Like Connor said, those things really help you figure out really what you want to do, because in school you're going to do everything you do. Manufacturing, machining.
Coding design you're going to do all that 'cause we have to teach you well rounded skills, but you're not going to like all of it, so you have to figure out what you like. So I highly suggest getting involved with either research. You know any other on campus or off campus? Job internships Co OPS? Or at least doing some sort of design projects that kind of engage different fields of whatever major of engineering you're in. So yeah, highly suggest it.
And I will say as a as a first aerial come in and you will immediately be thrown into the content. So if you really despise whatever major you chose, for whatever reason, you'll find out pretty quickly and there's a lot of core classes, physics, chemistry, calculus, all this sort of stuff that you have to take anyways. So there's a. There's a good bit of overlap just because he changed majors doesn't guarantee that you're going to have to be there for another year. It just depends on how late you switch.
Alyssa Yates
03:40:39 PM
Do you recommend having a minor, and do any of you minor in something that is not STEM related?
That is all such awesome advice, y'all. Thank you so much for covering all of that information yet and that's what we say is like it's a major. It's not like a life sentence, right? You have this flexibility and you definitely. The sooner you decide. Definitely, that does make it a difference in regard to your graduation timeline. But again, we offer a lot of center classes in his counter mentioned. There's a lot of core classes that are required across all disciplines as well. But yeah, just know we're here for you as well. If you ever want to talk that through an are advising team is amazing. So you're going to find some awesome advisors to connect with as well.
So another great question here is, do you recommend having a minor and do any of you have a minor in something that is not stem related? So so I don't think on this panel. Sarah is going to add some stuff though. You want to pop in Sarah?
Sure, so I don't have a minor, but I really was considering it so I can tell you what at least my minor would have looked like what. Also, another thing I would really like to mention, 'cause I did not hear about this option when I first came in to see Sue was that if you're interested in biomedical engineering, but five years to you just is like, Nah, not happening. We also offer biomedical engineering minor. You're not in as much classes, which for me I'll be like Oh my gosh, I want that bio Med, you know experience, but we do offer a minor in that.
We also offer a minor construction management, which actually is not in the College of engineering, and that's what a lot of our civil engineers do.
Jacqueline Goldring
03:42:10 PM
Here is more info on the BME minor: https://www.engr.colostate.edu/sbme/undergraduate-programs/bme-minor/
My minor that I was thinking about doing is actually a minor in Spanish, so I came in and for a minor in Spanish you actually only need 12 credits. I came in with one already AP credit for like a 200 level Spanish minor so I only had to take nine more credits to get that minor, which really isn't a whole lot. That is about three more classes so you can do a lot of different minors in. I actually have a whole spreadsheet of minors that most of our engineers do.
And I don't know how I can connect that with you guys, but maybe I'll just find links and put him in the chat, but you can do a lot. I hear a lot of people minoring in different stuff. It's super fun. Some of our engineers minor in business. It really just depends. The business is a little bit harder, but you can for sure do.
Sarah Verderame
03:43:16 PM
construction management minor: https://www.chhs.colostate.edu/cm/programs-and-degrees/minor-in-construction-management/
Yeah, I'll definitely echo exactly what Sarah said is it's. It's a great way to find a way to build in all of your passions to your degree as well, and to really make you an expert so that when you go for internships or jobs like you have those skills that are necessary so we have an environmental engineer on our team and she has an international relations or International Development Minor. And so that's exactly what she wants to do is work in different countries, building out ways to bring clean water to those folks, and so her minor and her major fit together so well.
Sarah Verderame
03:43:35 PM
a lot of our engineers do:
And also another one is Sarah mention. Is business a business administration as a great minor because a lot of times is an engineer. You're coming up with all of your own designs, right? So that's really helpful to be able to navigate intellectual property. What is the patent process look like, right? Like those are very complex process to work through and we also have certificates as well. So you might find that you have a certificate that you want to complete in conjunction with your degree. So like the entrepreneurship certificate is a great option for engineering students and that really helps you to complete.
Sarah Verderame
03:44:21 PM
Mathematics, Business Administration, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, and Interdiciplinary http://catalog.colostate.edu/general-catalog/university-wide-programs/interdisciplinary-studies/#undergraduatetext for a full list.
Global Environmental Sustainability
Conservation Biology
Environmental Affairs
Information Science and Technology
Sustainable Energy
Sustainable Water
All of those had classes that are really outside of engineering, but also brings engineering into the certificate. Like for entrepreneurship, you can actually count your senior design as credits towards that certificate program, so there's definitely a lot of opportunities for overlap. Also, there's concentrations within different majors as well. So like we have our aerospace concentration within electrical engineering, we have lasers and optics, so just depends like how you want to customize your degree, but know that the opportunities are limitless and it's really just down to what you want to get.
And then there is dropping a ton of Austin information in the chat here, so definitely it will be sure to drop our email in here as well before we sign off today so that we can follow up more one on one and just know that any of our ambassadors are available for one on one chats as well. So if you want to speak to one ambassador and in your interest area like during the day, you can definitely connect and just have a more personalized experience and that through video chat as well.
I want to make sure I didn't miss any questions here. OK, great, so I want to hear a little bit about involvement since we're talking a lot about student involvement, so I want to hear from each of you about extracurriculars that you're involved in within the University. And then I wanna hear bout maybe some outside interests as well and then hear about how you manage your time as an engineer. So let's talk to Kaylee first, will go Kylie Connor, Sarah.
OK, so I'm technically involved in way more than I should be.
But so I am currently a senior, so I'm working on my senior design project right now, but I'm technically on 2 senior design projects, so my first year design project is my real senior design project. That's the one that I'm going to get credit for, but my second one I've been a part of a program in the ECE Department called vertically integrated projects and it allows first year, second years, 30 years to hop onto a senior design project before they classify as a senior.
And stay with it for as long as they want. So I've been on the electrical and computer engineering outreach team since I was a second year in my second semester, and I really like it. What we do in that.
On the team is basically design different kinds of workshops and demos for middle schoolers or high schoolers. To get them involved in ECE and kind of show them what you can do in the major. Basically. So I've done something as simple as like making Doodle Jump game. I don't know if I'm too old for that now. Like, does everyone know what I mean when I say Doodle Jump game?
But we did something as simple as that. An actually made it on an LED screen so it wasn't on a phone. It wasn't an app, it was just something you programmed and plugged into a screen.
Jacqueline Goldring
03:47:03 PM
Here is the link to book a 1:1 appointment with an ambassador: https://connect.colostate.edu/portal/engr_appts
And we've also done some really awesome really cool like Demos where we take a really big capacitor and we charge it up. And when you put the two ends of the capacitor together, it makes it really be like lightning Bolt. Kind of so those are some things that we do just to show students kind of how easy concepts work and then outside College of engineering. I'm also president of Pacific Club, so as I said I was. I'm from Hawaii and so me and other students from islands in the Pacific.
Have a club that kind of just go with like sharing culture and identity and things like that. So outside of my engineering life, it's nice to kind of have a balance of like academics and non academics. So that's kind of like my take is the best way to do it is to find your balance because for me I can be really busy but it's easy to switch from an engineering like homework to doing something for Pacific club because they really different concepts. So like my brain doesn't like her.
All the time kind of an idea.
Sarah Verderame
03:47:54 PM
For environmental engineering, Alyssa, i have a roommate who is majoring in Global Environmental Sustainability. She is a civil but wants to do water, which is the main focus of our Environmental engineering. Let me know if you want more information on that!
Jacqueline Goldring
03:48:14 PM
Thanks, Sarah! Super helpful!
Yeah, alright so the biggest thing that I've been a part of here at CSU is my research. So I started research as a sophomore and you'll see a blog sometime next week up on the future student page where and I basically share my story, so I'll save it for that, but I was really surprised and happy to find that the research professors here really needed help. And so I've basically been developing and working on this ceramic sort of organic material that you can 3D print.
And put into bones to help it grow back and essentially make it so that you don't have to have like titanium screws and stuff having surgery. Put it in surgery, put it out, put another plate in all that sort of stuff. So that's been really fun and I've been able to do a lot of different things that I didn't expect to do as a sophomore, I learned how to do CAD. I learned how to do 3D printing, matlab and are just a bunch of different things, so that's probably that probably takes up.
The biggest chunk of my time. I'm also obviously an engineering student. Bassador. I just started. This is my first web and are but yeah, I felt nice and at home when I first came here to CSU Ann I wanted others to feel that way so hopefully I'm doing that for you.
Oh Man, I mountain bike a lot. There's a ton of trails over near Horsetooth reservoir up here in Fort Collins. Bunch of great little fun singletrack. I do a little bit of hiking. I play 3 instruments and I'd say that that is probably the best way to.
Just relax and breathe. Sometimes you go from a really complicated physical chemistry homework and then you can just go and play Linus and Lucy on the piano United, and I'd say that's probably the biggest.
Piece of advice that I can say for engineering students is fine, passionate hobby. Whatever cooking photography you know, whatever it is and be able to allow yourself an hour of that today, no matter how busy you are, just so you can decompress. Relax then. Definitely some sort of Google calendar or something will end up saving you. It's definitely saved because this has been a busy semester for me, so yeah.
Connor, we should go mountain biking together.
Let's see here things I'm involved in. I have been heavily involved with our CSU chapter of Society of women engineers, which I always plug. If you come to see you see you, please join us. It is freaking great. Excuse my language but I just love it so much and that is really the reason why I've gotten all my internships and everything else. So I am the mentoring program coordinator for that. I am involved with engineering ambassadors and let's see here.
Cool schools a lot and then also just kind of on my own time. My roommates and I we were really into plants and I think if you do come to Fort Collins, you'll find that people love their plants. Here we're all plantlike plant parents. It's really great, so we have like downstairs just a giant wall of plants. So basically you know if we need some sort of support or are ice cream in this case is going to buy another plan. So that's what we do a lot. And then I also cook a lot as well.
Alyssa Yates
03:51:43 PM
Sarah, that would be perfect!
All thank you all so much for Shane. I think that's super important like everyone's mentioned to have something outside of engineering that will find you know you can find peace in an you can relax and switch your brain off a little bit like that. Super important. So then you can hit that homework or project or whatever you're working on really hard. Maybe the next day as well and so we're getting. Let's see I don't know if there's anymore questions perfect there you go and what I was going to say was let's chat a little bit about.
Living on campus now. So I want to hear from some folks about their living experience. So we talked about the engineering residential learning community, so I want to hear from Sarah Ann Connor first about their experience living inside that community and then Kylie, I know you didn't live in the engineering community, but I know you access the resources. So do you wanna talk about your decision to live outside of the ER else so we'll go? Sarah Connor, Kylie.
Yeah, so basically I know you touched a little bit on like the different URL sees. But just to reiterate what Jackie said, we have academic village which is where we have honors aspyn and Engineering Hall and what we call Evie engineering. And that's where I live freshman year. But also in our engineering residential learning community we have Edwards Hall, which is right next door, but a totally different kind of set up the Navy so.
Rooms in academic village. One of the reasons that I really knew I wanted to live there was that it's suite style. So basically you only share bathroom with your roommate and no one else, and I really liked that idea.
And then also just the support I knew I wanted to live with engineers. I knew I wanted my my wow roommate. That's the word I knew I wanted my roommate to also be.
In my same major so we could help each other out. Things like that and I have been best friends with I think about five people that I met on that whole. I met everyone but really contained or really connected with those five people and we've been friends ever since for about four years now. So going on five going strong and we study together all the time. So that's something that I really knew I wanted to, you know, kind of set for myself right off the bat. Then I think Kylie and Connor can talk about those resources too. So not just blabbering.
But the other difference between avian then Edwards is Edwards. If you do choose to live there, it is slightly cheaper.
Yeah, so I lived in a V as well. I lived in the honors residence Hall instead and I chose that because I want it to be around similar minded people to myself. I'm definitely more of A.
Sarah Verderame
03:54:58 PM
If you have any more questions or want to connect further, feel free to text me: ?(720) 580-1589?. Alyssa feel free to text me here and I can get you connected with my roommates!
Study focused person then Dennis social person at times and I didn't necessarily want it to be super crazy all the time. And obviously I like the sweet style as well. Probably the biggest thing I got out of living in the honors dorm was the honored restaurant. All this, the other people that were on my whole we went to we call it family. Dinners would go to family dinners every Thursday and go walk on down to the.
The dining Hall right next door and do that and actually right now I live off campus in a house with three people that were on my floor freshman year and so really it's just a great way to make connections of people who are like yourself. Your art study, focus and enjoy talking about science and having those late night conversations out in the little study rooms on the sides and having fun. That way I used the resources and Honors Hall and the.
Jacqueline Goldring
03:55:41 PM
And you can email the whole ambassador team at explore@engr.colostate.edu
Engineering Hall alot. I primarily used some of the computer labs on the 1st floor of the engineering residence Hall to meet with people to work together. I had many late nights there working with other people. You know playing some music out loud, laughing and trying to figure out our code and I'd say that some of those nights are the best nights that I've had here so.
Yeah, so definitely you're going to be great people if you live in a V, and that's going to be true wherever else you go to, but Evie.
I can personally account for the great people that lived in Navy.
So unlike Sarah Ann Connor, I actually lived in Allison Hall and Allison Hall. If you kind of look on the map, it's on the North side of campus, whereas academic village engineering is on the South side of campus. So it is definitely kind of a bit of a walk. And I did find that I accessed a lot of the resources of the ER else, which is that first floor of the engineering residence Hall. I was probably there like at least a couple to a few times a week I would say.
But I specifically chose not to live in engineering residence Hall for a couple of reasons. The first one is that I knew that between all of my classes and all of the studying, I would spend a lot of time with my classmates. Like a lot of time, and I'm the kind of person who like just needs to take a break and be kind of separated like separate my school from like my social life in a way not to say that I don't have friends in engineering, but more along the lines of I needed to like mentale, take a break.
From studying an for me, going back to my residence Hall was my break. I knew like once I was there I was done like I didn't have to worry about doing more homework. I would stay really late at other places on campus like the library or the engineering building to study.
But as soon as I came back to my my room in Allison, I was like done for the night and I also really wanted the experience of other peoples majors as well. And learning from other people as I was talking about like the whole thing was, I really wanted the appeal of a large school which meant more people, more diversity, and so I really wanted to meet different people as well. And so I definitely found that I think I was the only engineering person in my floor.
Which is completely fine with me, but it was really interesting 'cause I got to learn about other peoples majors. One of my friends was majoring in hydrogeology and we really bonded because even though it's a major in the College of Natural Resources, she had to take engineering level classes like physics and she had to get to differential equations and I was like wow like we can take all of these classes together now. So it's really interesting to learn about like other people.
Jack Miller
03:58:42 PM
How competitive is it to get into the engineering residential hall?
Thank you all so much for sharing so we just have a couple of minutes left here and I know Sarah and Kylie have a tour after this as well. So I just want to hear from each of you if you can give like a 30 second sound bite of advice for students. So let's go Kylie Connor, Sarah.
My piece of advice for students is to give yourself a break, especially with the situation that we have now. But in high school, while you're doing your applications and also trying to get school work done, give yourself a break and once you get to college, college level learning is really different than high school level learning and it takes a little bit of adjusting to figure out to figure that out, so you might fail a test, or you might do really bad on an assignment an it's not a testament to whether or not you belong in the major. It's a testament to whether or not you can like overcome that problem.
Um, so yeah, just give yourself a break. An engineering is hard, but you have people around to help you to help you out.
Jacqueline Goldring
03:59:42 PM
We would suggest that you apply for the engineering ing hall early. You do have to be admitted first and then paid or defer your deposit then apply for housing.
That's funny, I'm going to give kind of analysis. That piece of advice here I was going to say don't be afraid to take opportunities and really push yourself because you're going to find that a lot of professors alot of your classmates they want to bond. I mean, you're all on the same ship. You're all going to a new place and you can really push yourself and find out you know what you enjoy about engineering, what you don't enjoy about engineering and really get a lot of great life experiences, not just.
Academically but professionally as well.
Jacqueline Goldring
04:00:06 PM
We also manage a waitlist for the ERLC
Yeah, awesome. I'll go really quickly since we are at four as in terms of answering your question. Jack, like Jackie said. So you will apply to CSU if you do get in you will also do your housing application at that time or after. With that you have to submit a slightly additional kind of essay ish thing for the engineering residential learning community. Really, it's just the kind of weed out you know who really wants it and that's about it. But definitely if you know you want to come to see you apply early.
Get in early 'cause we do rolling admission and then apply for housing early. 'cause that'll get you. It's first come, first serve. Basically with that my piece of advice is let's see Conor and Kayleigh. Kinda said at all. I would just say go and do whatever you're happy with. I chose engineering partially 'cause my parents are pushing me and thank the Lord that I liked it because honestly if they were just pushing me and I chose to do engineering, I would probably still be here because my brains just like I need to please people. But like I wouldn't like it so.
Definitely engineering is not for someone who doesn't like it, 'cause it's hard. If you like it, that's great. Please come join but if not go do something else or go to a different school like do things that are 4 yuan meant for you only and you will be happy wherever you end up if you just follow that.
I love that. Thank you all so much. I'm gonna give you a big round of applause. So we're going to say bye to Sarah Ann Kylie really quick here and then I just want to put a quick plug in for some of it. So thank you all so much for joining. Enjoy your tour so a quick message to everybody still tuned in. I did want to let you know that we are hosting in a virtual event called engineering exploration week, so it's a week long event for you to participate in. So I did drop the link earlier in our chat here so you can go ahead and register for that event today and every day of the week will be dedicated to a different Department. So if there's something that you want to learn more about.
Connor Witt
04:02:03 PM
Hey Jacqui, I need to run off for the Scott Seminar here
You can connect directly with the Department. They'll be hosting mock lectures. They'll take lab tours as well. They're going to be doing demonstrations, and we're going to do information sessions and student panels for pretty much every major as well. And then that runs October 19th through the 24th. So please register for that event if you would like to learn more Ann and Connor and I are going to run out for a seminar as well, so thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you Connor and have a great day and go ranks bye for now.