News Release

National Engineers Week at UCSD

On Tuesday 19 February, tomatoes dressed in parachutes fell from this balloon. Some survived and some turned to tomato sauce. Check out the 2 minute video:

February 19, 2008: You may be wondering why tomatoes wrapped in insulation and tape were falling from a giant balloon floating over Warren Mall. “And what’s with the mobs of laughing people and the huge golden calculator trophy?” you might have yourself asking.

This was E-Games – the kickoff to Engineers Week at UCSD – and the day when Jacobs School of Engineering undergrads faced off in a three part design competition in a quest for “the golden calculator.” The Tau Beta Pi team won this year and you can see their victory cheer at the end of this two minute video.

The quest for the golden calculator takes place on Tuesday 19 February.

The golden calculator – according to the student-run E-Games blog is a “TI-83 [that] holds the power of all graphing calculators no matter the model number or even brand. Thus any who are in possession of its ‘awesomenessity’ will gain unimaginable calculating fortitude.”

There was also an engineering student organization fair where you can find out about life as an engineering major, a challenge course, and a free barbeque organized by the Triton Engineering Student Council (TESC). (Learn about E-Games 2007 here.)

One of the goals of Engineers Week at UCSD is to call attention to the contributions to society that engineers make and to highlight that fact that many of the most pressing challenges facing the United States and the world can be addressed through engineering.

Tackling these challenges will require an engineering workforce that is as diverse as the human population at large.

Getting and keeping young people interested in engineering is one way to promote a diverse engineering workforce. Jacobs School undergrads are working toward this goal with their ENSPIRE event on Wednesday when 400 8^th graders will rove through campus and participate in a design contest, making Wednesday no less lively than E-Games Tuesday. Check out the two-minute wrap up video here.

Pershing and Gompers Middle Schoolers will be touring some of the hottest engineering labs on campus before competing in their own engineering design contest using household items. ENSPIRE is being organized by TESC and other Jacobs School student organizations. The Jacobs undergrads have taken it upon themselves to give local 8^th graders the chance to see the engineering side of college life.

“Given the need to increase and diversify the engineering workforce in the United States, it’s important to get kids excited about engineering early on,” says Jeff Mounzer, TESC president and Jacobs School undergraduate.

The organizers are trying to round up as many UCSD students to serve as volunteers as possible.

“What could be more fun than working together to teach younger students the enjoyment of engineering?” a Jacobs School undergrad asks on the ENSPIRE blog.

Research Expo is Thursday 21 Feb. Check out some of the hottest research projects here.

On Thursday, Engineers Week turns to the big top tents that will pop up on Warren Mall like mushrooms. The tents will fill with Jacobs School graduate students and their research projects. It’s a grown up science fair and an important chance for the students to interact with the local and regional business communities, future employers and potential sources of venture capital (click here for a venture capital success story at  Research Expo). UCSD students, faculty and staff are welcome to wander through the posters from 8:30 AM to 10:30 AM on Thursday 21 February.

At the Jacobs School, research is not just for graduate students. The undergraduates will strut their data and stats at EUReKA (the Engineering Undergrad Research Konference and Assembly) in the lobby of CMRR and give rapid fire oral presentations starting at 10:30 in room 2512 of EBU1.

Friday is job fair day thanks to TESC which runs the annual career fair extravaganza called DECaF. With more than 90 companies on the way, the Price Center is going to feel pretty caffeinated despite the decaf name. Recruiters representing all disciplines of engineering will be talking to students and looking for the right match for full time jobs as well as internships and summer jobs.

For an inside look at what it means to put on a massive job fair and a long list of associated career development workshops WHILE you’re an undergrad, check out the DECaF site as well as the DECaF blog. Keep reading for a light-hearted look at mail merge from the DECaF blog:

“Imagine having 200+ professors that you want to personally email to invite to an event of yours, like the Dining Etiquette Workshop. And you obviously don't want to start out "Dear Professor" because then they'd just write you off as another one of those "generic email writers." What can you do? Mail Merge lets you write and format an email invitation in Microsoft Word, personalize that email to a specific professor that you've listed in Microsoft Excel, and it emails your invitation to every email on that Excel Document through Outlook! Ingenious I know. So you're like "So What? I don't really think professors care that much about having a personalized email, what's the point?" Well imagine having a gazillion industry representatives and recruiters and officials whom you want to email to come to DECaF. Yes, let's just put ALL their emails in one "TO:" box and send it out. Yaknowadimean?”


Still looking for more? The student engineers are also throwing an engineer’s ball called Impulse on Friday night.

 

 

Media Contacts

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Rex Graham
Jacobs School of Engineering
858-822-3075
rgraham@soe.ucsd.edu

Daniel Kane
Jacobs School of Engineering
858-534-3262
dbkane@ucsd.edu