On Thursday, September 19, the engineering and technology department hosted a roundtable career advisement day with students in the engineering and engineering technology programs. This roundtable discussion with faculty covered activities in which students should participate in order to enhance their career opportunities while studying at Vaughn.
Department chairs, faculty and students in their senior year at Vaughn discussed 10 strategies for obtaining a successful career in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics or STEM fields. The following seniors participated and shared their extra-curricular and summer internship experiences: Sagufta Kapadia ’20 (Lockheed Martin), Aderet Pantierer ’20 (Boeing), Atif Saeed ’20 (Lockheed Martin), Sam Pantierer ’20 (SciMax), Abdalmonem Anwar ’20 (Pratt and Whitney).
The strategies discussed included: keeping grades up—having a grade point average (GPS) of 3 or better increases a student’s chances of both obtaining an interview for an internship and employment with many engineering industries; building hands-on teamwork and communication skills can be attained through hands-on laboratory projects, capstone courses, and involvement in technical clubs such as robotics, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE); and student chapters of professional societies such as the Society of Women Engineers, Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, Engineers Without Borders, National Society of Black Engineering and the Latin American and Caribbean Consortium of Engineering Institutions; building analytical and computer coding knowledge are two important skills essential for a successful career in STEM fields; involvement in extra-curricular activities such as technical clubs, competitions and STEM workshops helps to further enhance career opportunities and cultivate creative ideas; involvement in an internship program exposes students to real-world engineering projects and career-building skills; participation in student chapters of professional societies introduces one to STEM innovations and provides professional networking opportunities; involvement in technical club activities increases creativity and provides an opportunity to apply classroom knowledge to the actual building of an engineering system; involvement in STEM outreach activities such as organizing and hosting STEM workshops during Vaughn’s Annual Manufacturing Day, Annual International Drone Day, SWE Annual Conference, and Vaughn’s regional high school and college robotics competitions further enhance leadership and STEM career; involvement in scholarly activities including publications and presentations at technical conferences such as American Society for Engineering Education, LACCEI, SWE, American Helicopter Society, IEEE and Vaughn’s engineering publication VCJET integrate all of the career-building skills and contribute to success in professional careers and in continued education; and lastly connecting with the career services department allows for participation in workshops and events related to resume writing, internships, career fairs, and graduate school fairs.
“It was a wonderful event and the students were very pleased with the content of the day and what they learned to help them succeed,” said Dr. Hossein Rahemi, engineering and technology chair.
