This past week, Feb. 14-20, engineering honor society Tau Beta Pi hosted National Engineers Week (E-Week) at Tech.
“We’re the largest engineering school in the US in terms of attendance and enrollment and so it seems important that Georgia Tech would really push to have a nice E-Week celebration,” said Jason Cordero, ECE graduate student and president of Tau Beta Pi.
The events stretched throughout the week and included and a number of events across campus, including socials, scavenger hunts, building contests and a movie night.
“I think it was a very good selection for E-Week. It’s a good start. It’s a good reminder of what engineering and the sciences can do. And so it’s kind of inspiring in that respect,” said Santiago Hassig fourth-year EE major.
In addition to hosting their own events that week, Tau Beta Pi and the Society for Women Engineers hosted an E-Week social at the Academy of Medicine. Motorola sponsored the event, which featured Dr. Jane Ammons, Associate Dean of the College of Engineering. In past years, Tau Beta Pi’s celebration of E-Week was limited to a single day event on Skiles Walkway. Different engineering societies like the honor societies from the different disciplines would come and showcase.
“Basically they would bring a contraption or some kind of presentation and they would showcase this on Skiles Walkway. Students could walk by and see what the different organizations were doing. At the end of the day, the engineering society that had the coolest presentation got a prize,” said Kiersten Petersen fourth-year BMED and Tau Beta Pi vice president of programs.
“We really wanted to expand our celebration because it’s an Engineer’s Week and we were only having a one day event – not taking the full advantage of the full week,” Cordero said.
Through the week, organizers are trying to increase awareness in different facets of engineering.
“[Engineering is] not just tests and exams and working your calculator and MATLAB. It’s how you become professional, how you network and make contacts, how you license to practice engineering in your state and a lot of different aspects of engineering that we are trying to introduce our students to,” said Ryan Westafer, EE grad student.