Engineering 101 (3 p.m.)

Hi welcome hello everyone. Hi good afternoon.

Alright, thank you so much for joining us today. I'm just going to pause here for a moment until everybody gets logged in here.

But happy Wednesday afternoon. I can't believe it's already Wednesday now. Alright, so I'm just going to pause for a moment or so.

I'm really excited to share more information with you all about the College of engineering here at CSU, so we'll just wait a few more minutes here until everybody is a logged in.

Alright, well I hope you're doing well. It's been a cold day here in Fort Collins. Looks like most of the snow has melted, but definitely unusually cold. Went from 90 degrees at the weekend to 34 pretty bananas.

Alright OK, I'm just going to hang on for another second or two until we get kicked off officially.

Great, OK, well my name is Jackie gold ring and my pronouns are she, her, hers, an eye service, the manager for undergraduate recruitment programs here in the Walter Scott Junior College of engineering at Colorado State University. So what that means is I'm your point person. So any questions concerns anything you want to know more about. Please reach out to me. I'm here to help and you have a whole team of student ambassadors here to help as well. And so my email is on this slide here and I'll be sure to share that as well before we wrap up today.

And so no anytime were available to help you in this college search process so steadily in a usual time for sure. And unfortunately, we're not able to physically welcome you to campus. However, today we're going to share a lot of really helpful information and give you a peek as to what it's like to be an engineer at CSU. So so we kick off.

Great, So what? I want to talk about first is engineering overall. What does it mean to be an engineer? And so if you are considering becoming an engineer, you probably like to solve problems. So you walk through this world with a critical lens so you see how things operate around you or maybe have like don't operate and you think about how can I make this better? How can I truly impact change in this world? And that's a pretty powerful thing. And that's a commonality that you're going to find with.

All of our students here in the College of engineering you will find yourself among students who want to change the world and create a positive impact in society. Because the problems that engineers solve our huge, complex problems that we face on a global level and so it sees you. What we focus on are called the grand challenges of engineering. So if you have not heard of the grand challenges of engineering before, I would highly encourage you to go ahead and look those up 'cause it is truly fascinating and is everything from cyber security to clean water.

So these are wicked problems that we face again at a global scale and engineers truly have this capacity to create real life change. And here at CSU we think about working on these change changes together. So coming up with solutions in a collaborative way and collaboration is key, and so that's what you're going to find in our curriculum in our classroom and among all of our students in the College of Engineering. Is this urge to work together? Because the more minds that you can bring to the table?

The better, more innovative solution that you're going to have so engineering is all about representation. So diversity of voices and diversity of thought, and so it's easy. We also think about applied knowledge, and this is a huge piece. So yes, you're going to go to your lectures and absorb a whole bunch of theoretical knowledge, and then you have all of your lab components in projects where you have an application outlet. So that means you get a real world experience of what do these theories? What're this foundational work look like?

In the real life application setting, and so that's really powerful, because once you have an applied knowledge Proach, That's how you really embed your knowledge. An at CSU. Our whole motto is that you're not just inheriting your professors knowledge, you are truly advancing the field together collectively. And the only way that you can do that is truly to apply the knowledge and Ingrain an embed. That knowledge is well into your practice, so we also focus on projects. Projects are huge, it's built into every facet of our curriculum.

As well, so from the very beginning at CSU, if you come into the College of engineering, typically you'll declare your major of interest and you will start in that specific interest area intro class. So if you come in as a mechanical engineer, you're gonna take your introduction to mechanical engineering in your very first semester, and you're going to have lab components in projects built in, so you have the applied knowledge, peace and those projects will happen throughout your whole curriculum at CSU until you get to your senior year your final year.

You get an opportunity to apply all of that knowledge on one big project that you work on for that entire year and these senior design projects are truly impressive, and so there's a number of different teams of senior design students who come together to come up with solutions to problems that are either brought to us by industry or their research driven. So some of my favorite projects include our eco car, so Ecocar is a continuing senior design projects. That means that happens year after year.

And it's actually sponsored by GM, and so GM donates vehicles to institutions across the entire nation who are participating in Ecocar Challenge, and so then it's down to the institution to assemble a team of engineering students to come up with a design for that vehicle to get it to run at zero emissions. And it's a really exciting project because it truly is interdisciplinary and that is something that you'll often find in engineering is that you have to come together. An work with engineers from different.

Areas and you work with people across different disciplines is well outside of engineering and so it's really great about eco cars. You're going to have Electrical Engineers, Computer Engineers, Mechanical Engineers, Chemical Biological engineers and each engineer is going to bring their own special set of skills to the table and it takes all of those folks coming together to come up with the best design. And then at the end of the day, once the cars rebuilt, students get the opportunity to go and race the vehicle. So that's pretty cool and that really speaks to.

Not really. The mentality of teamwork at CSU. So teamwork is critical as an engineer. So you are going to work as teams, yes, in education and beyond because engineering does not happen in a vacuum. It truly takes a number of people to come together to work on problem solving. So teamwork is embedded in all of our practice here at CSU. And the more that you can do to hone your skills as a team member, the better you're going to do once you enter industry. Because if you can learn how to communicate when to lead, when to pull back.

Learn all of these facets of what makes up a good team, and communication is always critical. The better that you can hone these skills, the better you're going to do. Once you leave the institution.

Alright, so next step I do want to talk about Oliver majors in engineering. Here it says yeah, so this is a full list here and I am going to go one by one through all of these disciplines. So it's going to be a ton of information but definitely know that we're going to have space for questions at the end, which I forgot to mention. So with our webinars seminar here today, we're going to do is a presentation 1st and then we're going to go into a student panel, so we'll be joined by an engineering student ambassador who will be able to answer any other questions that you might have.

In the way that you enter those questions is through the chat feature here, so you can enter those questions now. Or you can wait until later, so whatever suits you.

So here here we got we're going to get started on all of our engineering majors here, so buckle up is going to be a lot of information.

So first I want to talk about bio medical engineering, so Biomedical Engineering is a truly unique program as we are the only institution to offer and a bet accredited dual degree in biomedical engineering.

So let's break that down. The first thing that I said was a bit accredited and this is huge, so this applies to no matter like what school you're looking at. Please ensure that the institution is a bit accredited, so this is the accreditation for that. Reviews all the curriculum across the nation for engineering colleges so they make sure that core competencies are meant so that when students graduate, they're able to enter the workforce as a safe engineer. So that's really important because employers look for this in the interview process. It's important that you have these credentials in place.

Because as an engineer you will truly have peoples lives in your hands. So if you're building a bridge, we have to make sure that you have all the skills and knowledge that you need to do a really fantastic job that provides a safe structure for people to use so a bad accreditation is massive. So no matter where you're looking to go to school, Please ensure that accreditation is in place. We just had our accreditation review back in October 2019, so almost a year ago in that accreditation is good for six years.

And then we'll have our review in another six years or five years now. But the other thing that I said was dual degrees. So biomedical engineering at CSU means that you get 2 degrees, so you get 1 degree in biomedical engineering and then you get another degree in a partner major. And the reason why is established this way is because when we first started the school for biomedical engineering, we asked industry partners for feedback and they said, well, what your students can do to be more competitive is to truly add depth to their program because.

Biomedical Engineering is vast.

It's a super broad field and there's a ton of different things that you can go into ton of different industries and number of different applications, and so by adding a more established discipline of engineering, you're really enhancing your knowledge and so you're able to become an expert in that truly makes you competitive when you're looking for work and employment after graduation. So there are three different partner majors that you can choose from. The first one is electrical engineering, so if you think about electrical engineering in the application of a bio medical field.

You're really thinking about image Ng scanning diagnostics, so maybe how MRI machines work. How do you mitigate some of the risk that there is associated with these machines as well? How are there less invasive processes? Is, well, that's your patients can be exposed to a lot of students. Also focus in optics and lasers as well, so a lot of students will still go into medical instruments and devices as well as imaging and diagnostics there, so the second major that you could choose from to pair with your bio medical degree is mechanical engineering, and this is definitely our most popular partner major.

So mechanical engineering is thinking about how things move. So in the field of biomedical alot of times you're thinking about how do human bodies move? How do animals move and then how do you replicate that? So a lot of times students are focused in building out prosthetics. Students can also go into medical devices and bio mechanics as well as biomaterials. So there's a ton of different fields students can pursue. Then the third major you can choose from is chemical and biological engineering. So students within this realm are heavily focused, usually in Pharmaceuticals.

So there might be synthetic and computational biology components as well and consulting so the other thing worth mentioning is if you are wishing to pursue medical practice after graduation on this degree, could set you up for success for sure. So if you want to pursue a pre Med, track it see as you you would have a declared major and then you would say you're on a pre Med track and work with a pre professional health advisor and to make sure that you're hitting all of those markers. So there's a lot of prerequisites that are required for Med School.

Also, there's a lot of volunteer experience that's required an you have to prep for all of your exams, of course, and so that advisor will help you through that process. What's great about chemical and biological engineering and biomedical together is you hit a lot of the pre recs for Med school throughout your degree.

And in is a five year program and the next step is chemical and biological engineering. So another super unique program where one of two institutions to offer and a bet accredited program in both chemical and biological engineering. And so we were the first. We always like to to her horn there an Biome with chemical and biological engineering is a wonderful degree because yes, you're able to do all of those jobs that are typically associated with chemical engineering. So if you wanted to go into oil and gas and petroleum.

You're going to be well equipped to do so. Then you're adding in this biological component really just opens up all of the different fields and applications for students. So a lot of times students are focused in material science, pollution control, Pharmaceuticals. There's a ton of opportunity for growth there on. One thing we always like to talk about, of course, is food engineering. That's a huge wine, and that's a huge win here, especially in Northern Colorado. And for us we really like food. We actually had the most restaurants per capita in Fort Collins outside the San Francisco, so that's a pretty cool one.

And you know, and there's a lot of tons of opportunity to really hone your skills in chemical and biological engineering.

The next step is civil and environmental engineering, so this is 1 Department but two separate degrees. So you either studies civil or environmental engineering with civil engineering, you're going to be heavily focused in large scale projects, so again, like building bridges and roadways and tunnels and maybe thinking through traffic management, is well. Typically if you're looking at buildings, it's going to be an architect who designs the building and then it's always down to that civil engineer to make sure it's going to be structurally sound, and then with environmental engineering our focus, it sees you as heavy and water, so a lot of water resources.

So water quality treatment, you know, water contamination and thinking about also site remediation and it's worth mentioning that this Department is renouned. So right now we're ranked #7 in the entire world when it comes to civil and environmental engineering and a lot of that is down to our water resources program. And my fun fact for this Department is, well, is actually. I don't know if you all know we're Lake Mead is, but it's right by the Hoover Dam there an actually. It's named after our first Department chair for civil and environmental engineering, doctor Mead, and so he was instrumental in building the Hoover Dam.

It's a pretty cool stuff.

Next step is another Department, so this electrical and Computer Engineering, so two separate degrees that share a Department. So the electrical engineering you're focused really heavily and hardware components, so products and systems all to do with electricity, you know. So anything that has a circuit to it basically and then also we have that concentration and lasers and optics and then with computer engineering you do have this wonderful opportunity to really live in both of the world's of hardware and software. So typically again, hardware is associated with electrical engineering and then software side coding and things like that is typically associated with computer science.

With Computer Engineering, you're smack dab in the middle so you're able to still focus on coding and programming and all the software side of things, and you really get a wonderful foundation in place to breakdown the architecture of computer, understand how the hardware works together. If you want to go into embedded systems, there's just tons of applications there, and students in either of these degrees have so much opportunity and industry, because if you think about it, pretty much everything we touch has to do with electrical and computer engineering, and the way that we interface with computers has completely changed over the last 20 years.

And that will only continue to grow and shift as we develop. More advanced technologies in VR augmented reality. An artificial intelligence like these are only fields that are going to grow and you will see that definitely in our student success. So when students are getting ready to graduate, we talk about placement rate and so the placement rate for this Department is 100%. So that means every single student who graduated had a job and that job is in their field. So it shows you again that demand for students and graduates within electrical and computer engineering.

Also, they have the highest starting salaries, so the average starting salaries around $73,000 for your first job outside of school and again the number of industries you can work in is limitless. So if you're interested in robotics software design, if you want to work in aerospace like these are going to be great degrees to set you up for success.

The next step is mechanical engineering, so mechanical engineering stuff and our most popular engineering undergraduate program. We have nearly 1/3 of all of our students in engineering are in mechanical engineering, and this is a fantastic degree because it is a really nice broad degree that will really introduce a ton of different concepts so that you can start to hone in on what your interest areas are. And so again, mechanical engineering is about how things move, those objects in motion, and how the curriculum is structured that sees you for all of our engineering majors is you start out in the first couple of years in your building, out your foundation and.

Theoretical framework and so. Then once you have all of those skills in that knowledge in place, you build up on that. So as you progress through your third and fourth years, you start to pick out what are called your technical electives, and for those classes those are truly ones that you kick out that really interest you. So you start to refine where is your expertise. So if you're interested in automotive, aerospace, robotics, material science, like, you can start to take technical electives that will fulfill your criteria for graduation and then also give you real world application 'cause a lot of times these classes come with lab components.

This is going to give you something to talk about when you go for job interviews, internship interviews, Ann, it really just a wonderful way to figure out what you want to do in industry after you graduate. Also, it is worth noting that we just added a new aerospace concentration and so that's how it under the mechanical engineering program, which is amazing. So what you would do is you would declare your major is mechanical engineering as and then as you progress through the program into your third and 4th year you would declare your concentration in aerospace and that will actually be listed on your transcripts as well once you graduate.

So that was a lot of information. If you are feeling overwhelmed or if you're thinking. Yeah, I'm definitely want to see you, and I definitely want to engineering. I'm just not sure exactly what kind of engineering Cummins and cheered open option student. This is a fantastic way to discover all of the in's and outs of each discipline of engineering, so it's different than coming in undeclared because you are admitted directly to the college and you have access to a lot of the support resources that are associated with our institution. And then you take a class in your first semester called in Juana won the grand challenges.

And that really covers those grand challenges that we were talking about and it think through how each kind of different engineer would approach this problem and come up with a solution because the way that an electrical engineer versus a mechanical engineer comes up with the solution is going to look very different, and so you really get a whole lot of information thrown at you. And really then can make a really well informed decision as to what you want to pursue for the rest of your degree.

OK, I'm going to switch gears just a little bit here. So that was a ton of information about the majors here. Now I want to focus on some of the opportunities you all are participating in. The Senior Scholarship Showcase, which is incredible. So this means y'all are at the top of your class. You know, you're really looking for those opportunities for growth when you attend a University, and so there's a ton of ways to get involved at CSU that will stretch you and really provide opportunities for maximum growth when you're here and one way to do that is to undertake.

Undergraduate research, so there's a number of ways to get involved with research at CSU. One of my favorite ways is actually looking up to see what faculty members are currently doing. So what's happening in their laps, what, what kind of grants are they receiving? What kind of work are they involved in? Is that something that interests you? If it is, you can reach out directly to that professor and ask them, hey, are you hiring anybody to work in your lab? You know, there's really a great sense of connectedness at CSU, so you will find that faculty members really want to help you get engaged and get into those labs to find those research.

Cities, then there are some more formal ways to engage in research, so one way is to reach out to aura. So that is the office of undergraduate research and artistry, and so this is a great way to really register your interest areas and get connected with different research labs across campus. So that's a great way to get involved. Another way is going to be a client through hers, which is the undergrad or the honors undergraduate Research Scholars Program, and so this is something that you do have to be invited to participate in.

Those invitations are usually sent out. I believe they are sent out between.

Sometime in mid January and early February and then their due April 1st. So hopefully I think that timeline will be pretty similar this year as well, but that is definitely something to consider if you want to get involved with research straight away and then another formal way to get involved if you aren't incoming engineering student, we have our sure program so that others that stands for the Scott undergraduate research experience and so this program is open to students who are part of our Scott Scholars community.

Which we are going to talk a little bit later about our Scott scholarship and share more information about that and then also open to 1st generation students and this is a great opportunity to get connected to labs and all of these are paid positions is well and then there is a poster. Exhibition is well it happens at the end of the semester so you can present all of your research.

So another way to stretch yourself here at University is to get involved with our honors program in at CSU. So we have our honors program and you would be in great company as an engineer because engineering is actually the most represented College in the honors program, which is pretty cool and with the Honors Program there are two different tracks to consider, so track one is typically what most first year students will come into, and that means you'll be taking a lot of honors seminar classes, which is really what would supplement a lot of your general education classes, so these are smaller classes.

That have really interesting topics and their smaller to really help to facilitate more discourse. So you're having a lot of critical discourse with your peers and then with your faculty members as well, and then track two is an option, especially for those students who are coming in, maybe with a lot of ID credits or AP work or dual enrollment. So if you have more than 30 credits coming it, you can start in track to track two is also an option if you start at CSU, but you're not an honors your first year and then decide after that time that you'd like to apply.

So this is something worth considering as well. With track too. You're not taking as many similar classes, however, you're starting to do honors option on a lot of your major specific classes, and so we'll talk a little bit more about honors option once we get to the student panel as well. Another requirement of the honors program is that you work on your honors thesis. The great thing for engineers is you are required to do that senior design project in your last year, and you can really double count that. You do have to write an additional essay to go with your senior design.

Project, but this makes all of your hard work pay off because you're seeing science project is a year long. You'll be investing a lot of time into this project is great that you're able to count that towards your thesis. Also another part of the program is there is an honors residence Hall which is situated over an academic village which we're going to talk about next.

So academic village is a cluster of buildings. There are three residential halls and then one dining Hall for the residential halls, you'll find the Honors Hall where you can live if you're an honors student. You'll also find our engineering residence Hall, which we'll talk about in a moment, and then you'll find Aspen. Aspen is the overflow on for honor zanfer engineering, as well As for returning students and then the dining facility is called Ram swarm.

So if you wanna live in academic village in participate in engineering, you can live in the engineering residential learning community. So this whole building is full of Engineers in their first year and it's wonderful to be surrounded by your peers because it is worth noting that engineering is hard and it's really nice to be around people who are going through a shared experience who can motivate and support you. This is a great way to foster community at CSU with your peers and there's a ton of different support.

And resources that you'll have access to as part of this community. Also, Please note that you do not have to live in the engineering residential learning community if you are an incoming engineer, you will still have access to all of these resources as well, even if you live in another residence Hall. So some of the resources include peer, mentor and so this is huge so you can be connected with a mentor who's a little bit older in the College of engineering, but they can help to connect you to tutoring resources. Other resources at CSU help you get involved and really get connected.

On campus and it's just great to have another person to lean on as you make the transition from high school to college. Also, this is probably one of the biggest things is we offer tutoring. So this happened Sunday to Thursday an each night is dedicated to a different discipline of engineering so you can go to your specific evening. If you're a mechanical engineer you could go on whichever night that is and your tutor who's teaching are facilitating these tutoring sessions. Is somebody who's just recently finished the insured in mechanical engineering class and so they've done really well there really familiar with the content?

And they're able to breakdown information in a way that differs from your tutor from your professor, and so that's one thing that I would definitely encourage you to do is to really engage with multiple perspectives, because all of us have different learning styles and you might show up to lecture one day an all of the information is shared with you, but it's not quite clicking and then that night. Maybe you go to tutoring and then all of a sudden your tutor explains it in a different way. That makes it much more accessible and then all of a sudden it clicks. So definitely go to tutoring and I always say go.

Early and go often.

Also, we have weekly walk in advising hours so this is super helpful, especially if you have an urgent question that you need address and you're not able to meet with your advisor that week so you can access an advisor who will help to address any of your questions or concerns. We also have residential assistance and these are folks who are engineering students as well who are a little bit further along in their degree and so this is another mentor essentially who can help connect you to services on campus. Also, their primary role is to foster a sense of community on your specific floor in the residence Hall.

Also, there are tons of resources, probably the biggest one worth mentioning is the whole design studio, so all downstairs there's a huge computer lab and you have access to this all the time and the way the Computer Lab is structured is actually, you'll find individual computers, desktop computers around the perimeter and then it shared workspaces, a center, and this really actually replicates the workspaces at Lockheed Martin because they're the ones who sponsored this space, and it really just goes to show you how collaboration is key in engineering.

So you have your individual workspace in a shared workspace as well. Also on these computers is all of the software that you're going to need throughout your whole engineering degree, so you can use it downstairs in the Engineering Hall, or you can remote access. This software is well, so wonderful. Tools and resources. Also, we do teach classes there in the engineering Hall, so you might be lucky enough to have your class right there where you live so you can roll out of bed and show up on time.

So do you want to talk a little bit about funding as well? So definitely this is a huge investment that you're getting ready to make, and it's one of the best investments that you can ever make. 'cause you are truly investing in your future and this will impact not only you but your whole entire family and community. We are very lucky at CSU to be able to help offset some of this tuition burden by offering scholarship opportunities. So last year we awarded 275 scholarships which amounted to 1.2 well over 1.2 million dollars.

And all of these are accessible through the CSU scholarship application. So if you go ahead and apply a CSU this year and you're you're on track, your you know it admitted to CSU October 1st, the CSU scholarship application will open up and you can start that process and it is a really lengthy process. I would encourage you to do that now as soon as it opens and then all of the scholarships closed for consideration on March 1st.

And there is one scholarship that we always like to talk about. I talked a little bit about the sure program in the Scott Scholar community, so the Scott Scholarship is massive and this is Mr Scott here. He's a pretty amazing person. He is an alumnus, CSU. He graduated in civil engineering and he made a large gift to our college that allowed for the creation of scholarships and so we have 20 scholarships that go to new incoming students every year. So 15 of those are for Colorado residents and then we have 5 for nonresident, including international students.

So you can see the amounts there. They are stackable with the Admissions Merit based scholarships as well, and you would be invited to apply if you do get an invitation to apply, you do have to submit an additional essay through the CSS USA and all of that is due on March 1st, but this is an amazing opportunity because not only is it a scholarship, it's a whole community dedicated to professional development and research.

So a lot.

Little bit about our office and before we start to go into questions here. So typically my office is located in the engineering success and I am working from home now. But this is really the front door to the college so any questions concerns anything like that that you have. You can come and see us and will help to get the answers for you.

And there's a ton of different resources out of our facility, and so one thing I always like to mention students is our diversity student organizations. So we have a ton of different organizations that students can get involved with from Day One, and getting involved in an organization as a great way to build community and really extend your network as well. So the diversity organizations focus on serving students. And there's a ton of different chapters and their national organization, so a couple of them include the National Society for black engineers we have Swedish Society for women engineers.

We have shipped the Society for Hispanic professional engineers and the list goes on and so these are amazing opportunities to get engaged on campus but also provide leadership opportunities. So one day you might become an officer of one of these organizations and have the opportunity to go to a regional or national conference where your meeting with professionals in your industry as well. A lot of times they host career fairs. You're able to present research, so it's a great way to really get connected and plugged in straight away. Also, these organizations host meetings.

And weekly basis, and are often the meetings are focused around professional development, so they'll bring in industry leaders to do resume reviews, mock interviews, offer informational sessions about their organization, so it's another great way again just to connect and build that sense of community and really extend your network as well. At CSU and beyond.

Also, we run a lot of the services that are associated with the engineering residential learning community out of our office, so we hire mentors and tutors in the advisor who does walk in hours. Her main offices in the Engineering Success Center. It's also worth noting that in the Engineering Success Center we have our very own career resources and this is huge, so she is super fortunate to have akarere services for all students at CSU and then we have our own very own Career Center that's focused on serving engineering students.

Because the way that your resume looks as an engineer is going to look highly different than, say, it journalism student. So we've got professionals who will review your resume, participate in mock interviews, and we also host two career fairs each year and these career fairs are just dedicated to engineering students. And so we have over 100 recruiters that come in to talk to our students and recruit students for Co. OPS internships and full-time jobs.

And talking about internship is nearly 90% of students will complete at least one internship prior to graduation and this is an internship in the field of engineering and many students have multiple internships before graduation. I know I worked with a mechanical engineering student who graduated two years ago now and he had for internships during his time at CSU and his summer before his senior year. He was working his last internship with Lockheed Martin and they actually offered him a job before the beginning of his senior year. So that's a great way to start out your final year in college.

So again, before we transition to our panel here, I want to put a quick plug in for social media. So if you want to get to know us a little bit more, follow us on line and we often do student takeovers and we share really relevant information as well for both current in perspective students. So please do follows at CSU engineering on Instagram and with that I do want to say that we're all here for you in this college search process. So this is our ambassador and outreach team and then all these smiling faces are here on the back end to help support you in.

Anyway, that we can, and with that I'd like to invite and Anya to go ahead, and broadcaster video and we'll start with some introductions.

Hawaii.

Hi Ananya, how are you today?

I'm good, how are you doing?

Well, thank you. Why you thinking if we could get started with a quick introduction. So if you want to let everyone know who you are and what you're studying, what year you're in, where you're from, and then how about? Tell us a little bit about where did you live your first year on campus, and what was your favorite thing about your living situation?

Hi everyone, my name is Ananya. I prefer the pronouns she, her and hers. I'm from India but I will and I'll be going into my third year studying chemical and biological engineering and I lived in academic village engineering during my first year and my favorite part about living in the engineering residence Hall was definitely the community that I was able to build. A lot of people living on my floor ended up becoming some of my closest friends, but other than that in general just.

Having all the resources available within the engineering residence Hall was really great as well. So having academic village tutoring that I could always have access to, I just needed to walk down the stairs and have access to it. And so all those resources will definitely very helpful to allow me to transition effectively. Both into CSU and also just starting that whole first year and having that transition from high school and then going into University at the same time.

Awesome, thank you and Anya. So if you have any questions if you're tuning in, feel free to put those into chat and will definitely answer those. I do want to hear a little bit about your major and then also like why did you choose to study CBE and why did you choose to come to see us you for that degree and then the follow up to that is why have you stayed at CS go?

Yeah, that's definitely a great question, and I often think about that a lot because I know during my senior year of high school I was really indecisive. I didn't know which degree I wanted to go into, and so finally I narrowed it down and I decided that I either wanted to do something going into stem or something more related to business and economics that was kind of feels which I know aren't necessarily related at all. But I really enjoyed a lot of the subjects that I was learning in high school and so.

Making that decision was quite hard, but what led me to Engineering was really because I really enjoyed chemistry first fan. So I knew that I wanted some component of Chemistry. No matter what I was doing and apart from that I really like the flexibility that engineering offers and so a lot of our professors actually own their own separate firms on the side. And so while there teaching there also able to still have like some of that business experience at the same time, and so that's something I really enjoy. I like the flexibility that it offers.

After doing chemical and biological engineering, I could go into law if I wanted too, which I never expected. I could do business or I could go further into engineering and do things like biotechnology or nanotechnology, microbiological concepts, meeting like that and so the flexibility that it offered with something that really appealed to me and then other than that the other huge plus point for me for Engineering was just that as an engineer you really get to see the impact you make on people's lives, and so that's whether you're making that impact directly.

Or indirectly, you're able to work on projects and you're able to find ways to truly help people, and so a lot of times if you have personal goals of the ways in which you would like to see the world improve, you're really able to put that into focus and really make your vision come true, and so that aspect of it was something that really motivated me to go into engineering as well. Apart from that, the reason I picked chemical and biological engineering in specific was because, as I mentioned earlier, I really wanted to do chemistry.

And so I landed on the idea of chemical engineering and so starting off. That's really the main thing I knew. And so during my college search process, I was really just searching for universities that have that program. But when I started looking at Csus Program, I really like the fact that they coupled the chemical engineering degree with biological engineering because at the same time those are two different degrees and so the nice part about it is that they really do overlap and so in a lot of other universities, often when you do chemical engineering.

Biological engineering will be either a minor or you'll be doing the double major, but at CSU, even though it's technically a double major, you're still able to put those components together and really mesh them well and then learn the knowledge of two different degrees and still graduate in the span of four years. And so that's something I really, really enjoyed, and then the reason I've stayed is because I wasn't able to visit CSU before coming to campus. I looked at pictures on line and it looked gorgeous and I talked to someone who was actually attending CSU at the time and so.

Really, I found out about the community, but it's a different feeling. Hearing someone talk about a community versus actually going there and experiencing it yourself. And so the reason I've stayed. I have two main reasons. One of them is really because the academic goals that I set for myself were achieved and so again, as I mentioned, I really wanted to get into chemical and biological engineering, see what it was like and I really hope that I would truly enjoy it. And I have really enjoyed it. I've been able to immerse myself in it and learn a lot about it, and it's been a great experience.

And the second reason was because I really wanted to get involved in research, and that's also something I was able to achieve. Apart from that, as I mentioned, the community is great. There's so many different ways of getting involved in the community, whether that be through research, extracurricular activities, or just hanging out in downtown Fort Collins and making new friends, there's a lot of different ways to build that community, because for engineering, go find that a support network really helps guide you through those four, 5, or how many other years that looks like for you.

Thank you so much for sharing and Anya that such helpful information, 'cause I think a lot of students are in a similar position now we're we're not able to. Maybe do those visits or, you know, come to campus, but it's really important that you talked to current students were at CSU, so you get a really great perspective of what it means to study here and what you can look forward to, and so definitely reach out to all of us. We're here to answer any questions if it's like today or at a future date an onion, I will both drop our contact information in the chat before we wrap up here today so.

Definitely ask questions. Connect with students who are here and who are studying things that you're interested in as well.

And and I get you mentioned research and that was one of your big academic goals that you've been able to attain. Do you want to talk to us a little bit about your research that you're you're involved with? And then also, how did you get in touch with the lab? And what did that process look like for you?

I can definitely do that. I'll start off with how I got in touch with the lab and so for me there were really two ways that I could have done it. One of them was the program that Jackie was mentioning earlier. The Hearst program, which is the honors undergraduate research scholars program. So I am in that program and during that first year, if you would like research opportunities, the director of that program does pair you up with research across campus. One of the benefits of that is that you don't necessarily work with a professor who's in engineering itself, and even though that might sort of seem counter Intuitive.

It really does work, because if you think about it, a lot of fields are interdisciplinary and so the skills that you learn in any other field can also definitely be applied to engineering. And so the cool thing about it is, let's say you're working with human development and family studies. You're really able to find out things about that field, but also apply your engineering knowledge to that field. At the same time, and build upon your research skills and expertise through that. But the way that I did it is since I did actually want to do research within engineering itself.

I had a professor actually who came as a guest lecturer to my first year class. It was my introduce chemical and biological engineering class and he told us all about his research and what his lab was doing so well. His lap does. Is there really focused on biomedical engineering aspects? And so it's a lot of concepts that are still from chemical and biological engineering, but they are related to biomedical engineering and since I'm not doing that, bio medical engineering dual degree program because I didn't want to add on that 50 or to my program degree.

I didn't know that I was really interested in pursuing research in that field, just said I could still learn a lot of that bio medical engineering knowledge. And so I just emailed him. I believe after his lecture and he was really easy to get in touch with. He set up a meeting with me and then we set some expectations. He taught me a lot about what his lap does and then he paired me up with a PhD student that actually works in his lab and so that process was really simple and easy. And the fact that I was able to get involved in my first year itself.

Was amazing to me. It was something that I dreamed of coming in from high school, knowing that that's something I wanted to do, but I didn't know if I'd be able to do it before My 30 year and a lot of times undergraduates, when they do work in labs. It's a lot of other work, like cleaning the lab or tracking certain things in the lab, and so you don't necessarily get to be as involved in the project, but the great thing that I found is at CSU professors care a lot about making sure that undergraduate students and graduate students have the opportunities to work in their labs.

And so you often find that anytime you have a guest lecture, anytime you even have a lecture with your professor will often tell you to reach out to them and talk to them. If you're interested in research, and if you'd like to learn more about their research, and so that's I would definitely recommend getting involved in research, especially during that first year, because even if it's not something you're interested in, it can definitely help you realize what aspects of your degree you like and don't like. So then when you do actually go into industry or still able to have that knowledge.

And if, let's say, an interviewer asks you what your personal interests are, you still know, and so it really helps you in knowing what aspects of engineering you like, because engineering can be great. I love chemical and biological engineering, but that doesn't mean that I like every single piece of it, and so really being able to find that out is crucial as well.

Thank you and Anya. Definitely helpful tips and tricks and looking on you said like you will truly find that faculty members or invested in you and your future. And so we're really. Yes we're in R1 so we're like a top ranked Carnegie Mellon Research Institute and our professors want to teach as well, which is like incredible so participating in cutting edge research and having a passion for students is pretty powerful, and it's worth mentioning that our research expenditure in the College of engineering alone is over.

$80,000,000 every year. So that's pretty impressive. And the College of engineering produces the most patents across all the colleges in at CSU, so that's pretty cool. 'cause sometimes you have the opportunity to be apart of that patent process and has an on you is talking about in the beginning is a lot of the entrepreneurship and business model that also comes alongside engineering. So we actually have an entrepreneurship certificate that can help you navigate IP. So a lot of times, and you'll be working through intellectual property. And how do you go through the patent process? And you can have support.

Through CSU Ventures as well to work through that process and get a certificate in entrepreneurship as well. So if one day maybe you want to start your own engineering firm, you can find ways to build up all of those skills. To do that successfully.

So, and I also want to talk to you a little bit about our honors program. So there are two separate tracks. So do you want to talk a little bit about how you entered the honors program? And then maybe share some of your favorite honors experiences? Thus the bar?

Can only do that, so we do have two tracks in the Honors Program. There is a track one and track two, so track 1 S rocky mentioned was really for students that are coming in straight from high school and so the way it's designed to set. If you have fewer than 30 college level credits, whether that be through dual enrollment, IB diploma or the AP diploma then you would go into track one and so on. Track one you take a lot more honors seminars. What these are are classes that are within the honors college itself.

And so their classes of about 20 students and the really cool thing about them is they can be about all sorts of abstract topics. And sometimes they aren't related to engineering at all, which is really cool, because if you're like me and you came in from high school having all this passion and all these different subjects, it really allows you to still branch out and learn more about those topics as well. And so an example of an honor seminar is that this semester I'm taking a seminar and it's called refugees in the modern era, and so it's talking about a lot of issues that are still prevalent.

In our society today and so it's really cool to be able to apply that knowledge from that class into our society as well. And so there's a lot of connections that I'm able to make between the real world and that class. And so it's been a really rewarding experience. And that's what that honors seminar in just the honors program in general is supposed to be supposed to be an enrichment experience, and you're supposed to enrich your learning in one way or another because the point isn't to just do more work and graduated with honors. The point is really to ensure that you are learning something and feeling like you're benefiting from it.

In some way, and so it's been a really great experience and so track one you take those honors seminars, but then track to the way that differs is that's the track where if you come in with those 30 college credits or let's say like me, you already came into CSU and then you would like to transfer into the Honors Program. Then you transfer into track two. And the reason why is because that program is really designed for students that have those general classes which we call AUC, sees the All University core curriculum classes and so those are classes.

Like chemistry, economics, things like that that you would typically take in those first two years of University, and so if you have a lot of those credits already done then you can focus on really honing down your skills for your major and the great thing about that is you can do honors option for your classes and so a lot of track two involves honors option and what that is is. It's wilt within your curriculum itself. So in my case for example, I am taking three chemical and biological engineering specific classes this semester.

And for two of those I did an honors option, and so I'll essentially be doing extra assignments for those classes to make sure that I'm still fulfilling that honors component, and so it's really great opportunity to still be doing honors, but at the same time, being really able to focus on my degree at the same time, and so I would definitely recommend the program. The other great thing is if you get into it, straightened, coming straight out of high school, we do have an honor scholarship as well, which I believe is $500 per semester. Jackie can definitely correct me if I'm wrong, but.

OK, so $500 per semester and so that's a great financial aid opportunity as well, especially if the honors program is something you're definitely considering joining. But if not, no worries, once you come to CSU, then if you decide that you do want to get into the program again, there is that track two options. So you do have flexibility in that as well.

Thank you Nancy. I definitely thank you for mentioning the scholarship as well. Yep, see you get $1000 each year. I'm divided up over those two semesters and that's a stackable scholarship. So if you get a merit based scholarship when you apply to CSU and this would be an opportunity to stack on top of with honors, you would be invited to apply an you do have to submit a supplemental application to apply for honor's if you're an incoming student, do make sure to do that early, because those honors applications are reviewed pretty quickly and they built out their cohort intentionally, so you want to make sure to get that information.

Committed sooner rather than later for honors, and we've got a great question here. And so for computer engineering or the engineering college. What are the SAT or AC T scores that they need? Could we send a minute later date if you're applying to colleges but taking S80 later so this year, so this is a totally different year. Right now the governor for Colorado Governor Polis has signed off on. And in order to make sure that we can actually all go test optional throughout the state of Colorado. So it's really exciting for us. That means actually you are not required to submit your standardized test scores.

You are welcome too if you wish to have those considered as part of your application, they will be considered as supplemental information, so we truly are test optional this year so that information will not be necessary in order to make a decision in regard to your admittance. To see, assume and the way that we make decisions to give you a little bit of context is we employ a process called Holistic review. Because at the end of the day you are truly an individual and you were bringing something special to the table outside of your GPA.

Outside of your test scores and what we're looking at when we review, application is everything that you provide and that includes your personal statement, your letters of recommendation, all of the activities that you're involved in at school. So include if you were doing something, especially if it's related to engineering. Let us know what that is. If you want to submit a resume as well, let us know if you've done a job shadow or if you have undertaken an internship or whatever work experience that you have currently. Please let us know because we're going to review all of that.

Alongside your high school transcripts, in order to make a decision and what we say is, we would highly encourage that. Throughout high school, we really encourage that you take a number of math and science courses to prepare you for engineering to make sure that you have a strong foundation in place to succeed in engineering. So we'd like to see that students take math all four years of college and the math classes that we are looking for specifically are going to be that we want to see either pre calculus or trig.

And calculus if you get to it in your senior year and beyond. So we want to see those higher level math courses and then also we're looking at your science, so we would encourage you to take both chemistry and physics. Definitely, physics is really applicable to every discipline in engineering and then especially like Ananya if you're interested in chemical and biological engineering, that chemistry component is super important as well, so we'll be looking at academic trends on your transcripts and all the other information that you provide to us so.

As 80s AC T is not required this year, but again, you are welcome to send those scores if you wish. But if you want to get your application into us in completed sooner rather than later, we will be able to render a decision without those scores on file.

So I hope that helps. Let us know if you do have any questions. Again, 'cause this is the first year that we've ever been a test optional institution, but I want you to know that will not in any way hinder your admissions decision.

Awesome, I'm just going to check if there any other questions. OK, no other questions, so I've got let's see. Let's let's search in a wrap it up here and Anya and think about students who are going through this college search process. So I want to think about any advice that you would have for students. Who are, you know, in their senior year, looking at different colleges making big decisions here. Maybe just some advice that you would offer and then maybe 1 tip as well.

For when students actually start at their University, no matter where you end up going to school, so thinking about something that's just helped you along the way and that you wish. Maybe somebody had told you.

Definitely, so going into just students who are actually looking at the college search process itself. There are couple of things that I would say. First of all, is don't be nervous. I know it can definitely be a very overwhelming process, especially when you're considering writing all these applications to all these schools and at the same time.

Taking into account the financial aid that you're going to be receiving, how your degree structure is going to look at the University, there's a lot of factors that you have to consider, and on top of that, doing your final exams and Justice, doing all your other work in general, and then if you're involved in extracurricular activities in high school off it, can get very, very overwhelming, and so I would actually say try not to be too overwhelmed by it, even though it can be stressful. Know that you're going to get it done just giving. You will take slow steps in small steps, but eventually it will get done. So first of all, definitely don't be stressed.

But apart from that, I will say definitely think about how you want your application to look. Essentially your application is a way that you're marketing yourself to the University. It's your brand image that you are creating, and so the really great thing is you just get the flexibility to show you the University what you would like the University representatives to really learn about you. And so if you're really interested in music or if you have any other passions that you would like to characterize just to show the University who you are as a person.

Then that's really important because at the end of the day, yes, as Jackie mentioned, test scores and everything, they do matter. But up to a certain extent, because we do do the holistic review. And So what that is, is we really want to make sure that we get to know you as a person and why you bring to the table 'cause everyone of us is unique and we do have different qualities and so being able to mention that is really important. Other than that, I'll say, depending on whichever discipline of engineering you're interested in, definitely look at the extracurricular activity so you can get.

Involved in that would really show universities that you are interested in that discipline, and other than that it would just be great for you to get a Head Start itself on that discipline, and so let's say you're doing computer engineering. Find out what kinds of software is the universities that you are applying to use, because if you're able to learn at least the basics of the softwares before you're at the University itself, I guarantee you that transition is going to be so much easier. And then other than that, just reach out to us as well. We are here to help, and we love talking to.

Both perspective students and students that have already arrived at CSU. We are here to be a resource for you, so it's a definitely use it. And apart from that, going into that first year itself, I will say for any first year students as well, I would definitely say one of the things that I wish I had done is not been afraid of failure in the sense that engineering is definitely hard. It can get very rigorous, but now that you have a support system behind you, whether that's friends, whether that's professors teaching assistance.

Graduate students, whoever that might be, you will find a support network in one way or another, but the really great thing is there's a lot of resources for you to be able to find that support network, so be sure to make use of those resources and be sure to talk to other people who can tell you about those resources, because there's probably a lot more resources that you haven't even heard of on campus itself.

Thank you and anger that's so helpful and like I just said We are here for you as it says here on the slide. I did drop my email in there so we can definitely chat more as well offline. I did want to address the question about college algebra. Yes, college algebra would be accepted as well so you can transfer in college level credit. So yeah, if you're taking like a dual enrollment course, definitely we do really like to see you know that you've done something pre calc level because the goal and Engineering is that you do start in calculus.

Either calculi, norcal two as you come in to start your engineering curriculum, and so that's a really important indicator of success, and students is to make sure that everyone is really calculus ready for that first semester is the issue. But college level algebra definitely can transfer in it to CSU, but definitely having a foundation in pre calc is really something that we highly encourage for sure. So definitely let us know if you have more questions and I needed popped her email in there as well.

So now that you've got some friendly folks on the inside that can help you navigate this process as well. So with that, I think we'll go ahead and sign off for the day and I'm just getting ready to do a live virtual tour so we do have lots of ways to connect with our engineering college. Virtually so if you wish you can check out our future students page on the engineering site for all of those opportunities to either meet one on one with a current student, or come and do a virtual tour as well. So thank you so much. Good luck in your scholarship essay contest. We're rooting for you all.

And with that, I'd like to say go have a good day.

Hi everyone.