On March 14, or written numerically “3/14”, the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Student Advisory Board hosted a Pi Day event complete with free pies, board games and a chance to relax with other ECE students before Spring Break. The Pi Day celebration is the second event the board has put on this school year as part of their initiative to cultivate the student life and experience of ECE students.
Yash Kulkarni, third-year CMPE and ECE Student Advisory Board president, briefly explained the purpose of the board.
“We’re a group of all the leadership from every ECE club and then a couple of ECE student body members, and our job is basically to relay information for issues that are going on in the department to the faculty and also to work on initiatives to make the student life better. We put on some events in collaboration with some of the other clubs, so last semester we did the Van Leer haunted house and this semester we are doing the Pi Day at the Hive,” Kulkarni said.
The festivities for this mathematical holiday began in the morning with a scavenger hunt throughout Van Leer.
“We had like 10 locations around the building and people had to find all 10 of them to get a big prize,” Kulkarni said. Additionally, while students enjoyed the delicious pies, a competitive Mario and Super Smash Bros tournament took place, the winners of each would also receive a prize. Rhett Carver, second-year CMPE and a member of the board, elaborated on the board’s role within the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He mentioned how the board acts as messengers for ECE students.
“We try to focus on helping the student body of the Electrical and Computer Engineering school really get through their program comfortably knowing that they have resources and guidance, and so what we do is we throw events like this, we listen to their complaints and we pass it on to the directors of the school and the faculty and staff. We’re kind of like the middle man in between the student body and the people who actually get paid,” Carver said.
Carver explained that he has enjoyed the opportunities that being on the board has brought him as well as the relationships he has been able to form in an ECE-centered environment.
“I’ve been on the advisory board for coming up on a school year now. I joined back in August and I’ve really enjoyed getting to know all the people, I have some good friends on the advisory board now, and I’ve really enjoyed being able to get involved with the events because I’ve wanted to try and find a place where I can demonstrate leadership, and I get to do that here where we’re organizing events like this,” Carver said.
This is the fifth year the ECE Student Advisory Board has existed, and Jordan McClinton, fifth-year CMPE and member of the board remembers its founding. He explained that a lack of community amongst students at the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering prompted the board’s creation.
“When I got here, first of all we didn’t have an advisory board, there weren’t very many events, people didn’t really hang out here in Van Leer or ECE in general. A lot of the other buildings and majors there [are] common spaces and events and stuff going on, but we didn’t really have that for ECE, and I just wanted to be involved in campus and also do something with ECE,” McClinton said. McClinton has been on the board since it was founded.
The board was created to improve student life within ECE. In closing, Carver said, “Being an ECE student is tough, it’s difficult. I mean it’s engineering and not only engineering but it is computer engineering and electrical engineering, so I would say to any ECE student take some time to enjoy yourself, take some time to refresh your brain … A lot of people don’t realize that what they need is a break, and so I would tell them to take a break.”