ASME Student Professional Development Conferences Update ASME Student Leadership Seminar Fall 2010 Introduce Yourself … SMILE This presentation is intended to be given to student attendees of the Fall Student Leadership Seminars to let them know about future changes to the SPDCs. The presentation can be given by an ASME staff member, Student Section Advisor, Student Section Chair, or a representative from the ASME SPDC Futures Team if they happen to be attending an SLS. How many of you have been to an SPDC? [IF ANY RAISE THEIR HANDS] How many have participated in any of the competitions (Old Guard or Student Design Competition)?

We need your help to do this right! A group of ASME staff, volunteers, student representatives and engineering faculty have been thinking about how to improve the SPDCs (Student Professional Development Conferences). We need your help to do this right! About 15 months ago, a team was formed and spent the better part of a year gathering input from students and other stakeholders and taking a look at student needs and the SPDCs. We are now preparing to implement their recommendations, and we can’t do it without you.

“We want design problems with more humanitarian and social impact.” We’ve talked to some ASME student members already, and they say things like: “We want design problems with more humanitarian and social impact.” “It’s hard to form a design team before the SPDC. Can there be an impromptu design challenge that requires no prior preparation?” “We want more opportunities to talk to engineers, entrepreneurs, and researchers about cool stuff they do.” “We would like to have more input in the kind of events ASME plans for us. Hands-on = great. Long lectures = snooze.” Here’s some of the input we’ve gotten from students that have attended SPDCs. How many of you relate to any of these comments?

We’ve talked to some industry folks, and they say things like: “We want to hire engineers with good communication skills, some real-world experience, and the ability to work on a team.” “We have interesting problems that we would love undergraduate engineers to work on. Can we submit a real-world design project to ASME?” “Creativity and innovation are important to us, and we want to hire students who can apply these skills to open-ended problems.” We also looked at research and talked to working engineers about what they are looking for in graduating students.

And here’s what ASME wants for you (if ASME could speak): “We want our student events to meet your needs. We really want to better engage you and help you prepare for your post-graduate plans (graduate school, industry, entrepreneurship).” “ASME, like many large organizations, has strategic initiatives that help guide everything we do. For 2011, these are Energy, Global Impact, and Engineering Workforce Development. We want ASME student events to include all of these things.” ASME is all of us – staff and volunteers…. The people in your District who help with SPDCs and SLSs…. The people that design the competitions each year. We do this because we care about you and want you to have a great ASME experience. At the same time, we’d like you to know about the issues of primary importance to the Society, and for your experiences to have some relationship to them.

So, putting it all together, we want: Student professional development events that: better serve students align with ASME’s strategic objectives are fun, engaging and useful for you More opportunities for: √ Networking √ Non-technical skills √ Teamwork √ Social/humanitarian impact √ Hands-on √ Learning / problem solving √ Self governance We’ve formulated our vision for the SPDCs. √ Excitement!

How do we get there? Try some new events at the Spring 2011 SPDCs! Rapid Design Challenge Show up, join a team, solve a real-world problem, present your solution Team based presentations for the Oral Presentation Competitions New design review format with immediate feedback from judges More like what happens in industry [Insert your own idea here!] If you would like to see these new events at your Spring 2011 SPDC, please let us know (spdcfutures@asme.org). We’ll work with the hosts to pilot some new activities. To get started, we’re going to try out some ideas in Spring 2011, with different competition formats that emphasize teamwork and a design challenge that doesn’t require advance preparation. Most SPDCs will have the same format – with the Student Design and Old Guard Competitions. We’ll pilot the new ideas at the University of Central Florida SPDC the first weekend in April. If you’ll be at a different SPDC and would still like to have some of the new ideas at your SPDC, let us know! We’ll work with the host to see about piloting them there as well.

In the future (by 2013) Transition to fewer, larger student professional development events Bring more students together at one exciting location! Try new things and keep what works! Focus on student needs! More industry and entrepreneur networking 2-day real-world design challenge Work with global teams Work on engineering for the social good Fine-tune your communication, teaming, and technical skills Share your work with other students and industry After next Spring’s pilot, we’ll see what worked and what we could do better and begin a transition toward a new model SPDC …. Perhaps one with fewer conferences, with more resources available for each one. [more resources = higher quality]

What can you do? Tell us if you’d like to see new activities at your Spring 2011 SPDC - (spdcfutures@asme.org) Student Stakeholders Meeting Saturday evening at IMECE – stop by if you’ll be there! Attend the Spring 2011 SPDC and let us know how you like the new activities Respond to requests for feedback on SPDCs and other student experience issues Share your ideas with the planning teams Email us directly: spdcfutures@asme.org : ASME Student Experience Forum Like I said, we can’t do it without your help. Please let us know what you think of the new ideas, and how they turn out. Also, share any other ideas you have about making great SPDCs. You can email us directly of join the ASME Student Experience Forum on Facebook. If you will be coming to the IMECE, or know other students who are, please spread the word that there will be a Student Stakeholders Meeting at IMECE, Sat night, at which we'll have a chance to talk about the competition ideas that are being developed, and for folks to meet the SPDC Transition and Future Models team members and provide input into what's unfolding.

The Bottom Line We can’t do this well without student input. We’ll continue to keep you updated and let you know what to expect for future events. Together we’ll develop student conferences that better serve your needs and are fun, engaging and useful. Does anybody have any questions?