Orange County Branch Newsletter

October 2013

Younger Member Forum

Younger Member Forum - First General Meeting for California State University Fullerton Student Chapter


By: Eric Walker

A room packed with over a hundred students, more boxes of Costco pizza than I have ever seen before, and enough Jaritos sodas for a small army, what a way phenomenal way to kick off the 2013-2014 ASCE year at CSUF! The meeting came a few days after the initial club fair where scores of students are bombarded with all manner of clubs and organizations – ASCE among them – to help student figure out what directions they want to take in the college careers. Based on the attendance of the first ASCE meeting, I would say the marketing team for CSUF ASCE did an outstanding job.

In order to build on the initial excitement of students just getting back to school, and many of them having never seen or heard of ASCE before, the student chapter leadership invited Remi Candaele and myself to come give a professional perspective on ASCE involvement. Remi gave an excellent speech that encouraged students to get involved with the Student Chapter for all the soft skills and leadership qualities it would help them create, which would in turn turbocharge their careers down the road. I believe also having a presenter who was so passionate about helping people learn the technical and soft skills really resonated with the students who are in the end, there to learn.

I decided to talk a little about my own experiences in the ASCE Student Chapter and how many of the friends I still keep in touch with today were people I met and worked with at ASCE. I told them that ASCE would foster lifetime friendships and in an almost unanimous vote, the students in the room decided they would like to have more friends. People seemed to be excited about becoming involved and it is looking like it will be a great year for the group.

In addition to Remi and my presentation the other board members form the student chapter spoke on the various conference events and how to get involved. They were very prepared with membership forms and I have a feeling CSUF ASCE will have a strong showing this year.

 

YMF members presenting to CSUF students

CSUF ASCE student members

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