ELS 2024: Shining During Your Undergrad, by Jasmin Simpson

At the Engineering Leadership Summit (ELS) 2024 hosted by UNB Saint John, there were a plethora of opportunities for delegates to engage with their peers, form meaningful connections, and procure essential knowledge related to leadership and teamwork. This conference was oriented around giving motivated students the skills and knowledge required to build a community or event at their school.

This ideology is best represented by one of the workshops hosted by one Berry Genge. Berry is a UPEI engineering student who is a keen volunteer in numerous societies and events at the school. Her talk aimed to provide a framework to get more involved as a student in your undergrad degree through three key pieces of advice:

1)     Take advantage of opportunities.

2)     Learn how to sell yourself.

3)     Always be thinking ahead.

Firstly, Berry advised students to take advantage of opportunities that present themselves. Undergraduate engineering is a unique ecosystem where students can take on tasks they don’t currently have the knowledge to complete, rather than requiring those skills as a prerequisite. Building skills as part of a society or team is an expectation, not an indication of lacking qualifications as it might be viewed in other situations.

Secondly, our presenter advised delegates to think about how to best present accumulated experiences. This advice centers around word choice and technical language to demonstrate on a deeper level what you accomplished in a past experience, for example on a resume. The loose formula she presented is as follows: Event + Action + Result = a compelling reason why you are an asset for someone’s team.

Finally, developing these skills allows a student to move towards a goal they have in mind. Perhaps a student doesn’t have the skills or can’t make time for a position on their local engineering society. Taking on smaller roles requiring related skills can help situate them to take on their ideal role in the future. The concept is similar to compound interest; as your past experiences build on your current experience you become an increasingly valuable asset to a team.

Undergraduate engineering presents students a chance to develop skills outside their degree as much as it does within their field of study. Soft skills are a crucial part of a first-class engineering student’s development as it makes them a more well-rounded individual. The math-centric specialized engineering student is going extinct, and conferences like ELS are contributing to creating engineers that can support their technical competencies with effective leadership and people skills.