Student ProjectsMSAB Engineering Week
Project Manager
Justin Dong, McCormick Student Advisory Board
Amount Requested
$5,000
Summary
The McCormick Student Advisory Board (MSAB) is a diverse group of undergraduate engineering students dedicated to representing the McCormick student body, identifying the needs of students, and working with the administration to unify the McCormick community and improve the McCormick experience.
Towards the end of the academic school year, undergraduate students studying majors under the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science have strived, pursued, and conquered various goals. Proud of what the McCormick student body has achieved, E-Week provides engineering students the opportunity to relax, explore, and learn all the fun things that student groups have been up to.
Engineering Week (or E-Week for short) is a week-long event in May where we host and coordinate multiple free events every day of the week open to all undergraduates. As MSAB, we host the kickoff event to get everyone excited about E-Week, a relaxation event later on in the week where students can take a break and get a bite of food alongside other amenities (which can take the form of therapy animals if the circumstances allow us), and a student group showcase. The other events are held through collaborations with many of our registered McCormick student groups. These diverse sets of events were put on as project demonstrations, mental health break activities, and speaker events with NU professors. Through a network of coordination, E-Week provides a cohesive set of events allowing for maximum turnout.
This year we hosted our second completely in-person E-Week since COVID. We had over 300 people come to our kickoff event, at least 50 students engage with professors at a dinner event, and nearly 100 people signed up for our Remind text message service for event updates.
Planned Activities/Investments
Kickoff Event
At our kickoff event at the start of the week, we distribute custom E-Week shirts, stickers, goodie bags, and a food item. This year the food items were smoothies, which really excited the students and simultaneously informed them about the event schedule for E-Week. Distributing shirts and stickers branded with E-Week and Engineering logos helps build a bond and sense of community within the McCormick student body. The goodie bags are our way of giving the undergraduates a mental break with candy and fidget items as well as a way to access our weekly schedule.
MSAB Relaxation Event
Later in the week, we hold a relaxing event for undergraduates to take a quick break. We would offer food and other amenities. This would keep the undergraduates engaged with E-Week as well as provide a relaxing environment. We plan to bring in a mental health activity such as therapy animals, so the McCormick student body feels supported through the stressful times of finals.
MSAB Student Group Showcase
The student group showcase is held to provide McCormick student groups with the opportunity to present and demonstrate their projects all in one place. We would have about 15 groups with projects that would range from biomedical applications to race car engineering. Many student groups never get the chance to show their projects and the progress they've made through the academic year, so by putting the showcase on, we are highlighting the achievements that McCormick student groups have worked on.
McCormick Student Group Collaborative Events
We give McCormick student groups the freedom to decide what event they would like to hold, and we help them with funding and marketing. This helps fill the E-Week schedule with a variety of different events to portray the diversity of McCormick Engineering.
Impact
The main target of our impact would be undergraduate students studying an engineering major. Because MSAB is an advisory board connecting the McCormick faculty and students, E-Week is meant to be a community-building event where students and faculty can develop their sense of passion for what they do and what they will do in the future by looking at all the fun and interesting ways engineering can be applied. Through this project, we want to build on that playfulness of engineering and show how fun it can be.
A way to gauge the efficacy of our impact would be with visual analysis. Since we gave out hundreds of E-Week shirts and stickers we can determine how well we engaged our target groups by the frequency of seeing E-Week merchandise on campus.
Major Deliverables
- A master schedule with all the finalized times and locations of the events. Any required changes or updates are made here. This will be compiled into a large banner made from the SOURCE at Norris which is put into the lobby of Technological Institute.
- The sense of camaraderie of engineering students around campus! We want to boost the engineering spirit and reward them for a year of hard work.
Sustainability
Another responsibility of MSAB is to review MSAB Grant proposals that McCormick student groups apply for when needing funding for projects, conferences, or events; therefore, funding would be accessible to us as a group if needed. However, we would like to keep major MSAB funding available for student groups to use for their own projects as it is open to apply to for most of the year. Since E-Week is also held in May toward the end of the academic school and fiscal year, the MSAB Grant fund tends to be low. Given these circumstances, we believe it to be more ideal to set aside the amount of money requested in this application through the Murphy Society Funding.
Previous Projects
We and other McCormick groups co-hosted 23 event during the span of the week, ensuring that there was minimal time where an E-Week event was not happening. From student feedback, we heard many positive comments about the organization of this week, as there was always something to do as well as free commodities and food. Overall, we are proud to have hosted an event of this scale that every engineer is familiar with, and we hope to continue to uphold this tradition to boost the engineering spirit as the school year wraps up.
Budget Overview
- E-Week Shirts - $4000
- Manufacturing company: Club Colors
- Quantity: 400
- Unit price: $9.85/shirt (Port & Co. brand; 4 color print; front and back artwork)
- Size distribution: S/110, M/130, L/110, XL/50
- The shirts would be given out at the kickoff event and throughout the events of the week. It helps bring unity to McCormick students.
- E-Week Stickers - $450
- Manufacturing company: Club Colors
- Quantity: 500
- Unit Price: $0.90/sticker (by ordering a minimum of 500, the unit price is reduced to $0.90/sticker)
- Kickoff Event Goodie Bags - $200
- Quantity: 200 goodie bags
- Candy: ~$80
- Paper bags: ~$40
- Fidgetting item: ~$40
- Printing and paper costs: ~$40
- MSAB Hosted Event - $550
- Food Catering: ~$400
- Entertainment service rental: ~$150 (based on availability and the right conditions, the service can manifest as a rental for therapy animals)
Faculty Adviser/Department
Vanessa Magallanes/Office of Undergraduate Engineering