Engineering Week to bring in Apollo speaker

Erin Whyte took first place in the Miss Engineering Pageant, Thursday, as Engineering Week nears its end. Emily Chipman, the Engineering council president, said the changes implemented to the week amplified its overall success.

 

Whyte, a senior in civil engineering, said she exemplifies the typical female engineer, but considers herself more loud than most. She is involved in the Val R. Christensen Service Center as well as with the engineering school.

“All I really want is world peace … and to graduate,” she said.

 

Similarly to previous years, the Miss Engineering pageant is composed of three competitive categories: Enginerd, Brains and Beauty and New Intern. In the competition, 12 female engineering students flaunted their inner nerd, formal attire and business attire and answered questions from a panel of judges. The panel of judges was composed of faculty and staff from the engineering school.

 

In the Enginerd portion, Whyte appeared on the stage dressed as Princess Leia from Star Wars, and her competitors came out wearing attire ranging from an “engineer toolbelt” to pencils shoved into their hair. The winner of this section was Katie Glaittli, a freshman majoring in biological engineering.

 

“The biggest problem engineers have is balance,” said competitor McKenzie Smith during the New Intern portion of the pageant. “There is sleep, it is rare among us, and talking to our families that we still need to make time for.”

 

All participating students answered questions drawn from a hat and in the end, the judges chose Tasha Stembridge, a junior in mechanical engineering, to win this portion. Chipman, who organized Engineering Week, was awarded winner of Brains and Beauty.

 

Complementing the Miss Engineering pageant was the Nerdy Man Competition, and Riley Bradshaw, a junior majoring in civil engineering, and Spencer Palmer, a senior majoring in mechanical engineering, tied for first place.

 

Engineering Week began Tuesday and will end Friday with an award ceremony for the department. Chipman said overall the week has been a success thus far and she, along with her planning committee, were able to fulfill all of the dean’s requirements.

 

Scott Hinton, Dean of the College of Engineering, said Engineering Week has accomplished the college goals of focusing on the students. He said there has been more participation than there has been for years and the students in charge of organizing it “have done an excellent job.”

 

Chipman said her committee of 12 other students have “done a ton of work” to make the week a good experience for engineering students. She said at request of the dean, community involvement was an important aspect to the week that hasn’t been implemented well in the past.

 

“We put together displays of engineering projects and we invited the community,” Chipman said. “I would say there was 400-500 non-students who attended, it was great.”

 

Showing off their work to friends and family is a reason Hinton said it is so important for the community to be involved in E-Week.

 

“Students get to celebrate who they are and show off why they like their world,” he said.

 

One main event of the week was hosting guest speaker Sy Liebergot, EECOM Flight Controller for Apollo 13.

 

Chipman said it was a great experience listening to Liebergot’s story. She said listening to his experiences in the control room was “really cool to hear about the story firsthand.”

 

Hinton said the speaker did a great job and he hopes students realize they can go on to bigger things in their lives after school.

 

“I can only hope all our engineering students will get the opportunity in their technical career to be part of something big like the Apollo program,” Hinton said. “Engineers really have the opportunity to create tomorrow.”

 

– catherine.meidell@aggiemail.usu.edu

– megan.b@aggiemail.usu.edu