Enspire is less than 2 weeks away!

Hello everyone, my name is Kim Nguyen and I am the Outreach Chair Internal for the Triton Engineering Student Council (TESC). I am a senior in Bioengineering with a minor in Biology at UCSD. I will be writing to you to keep you updated on the planning of Enspire! I'm so excited about Enspire, it is now less than 2 weeks away! It will take place on Wednesday, February 20th during National Engineers' Week (February 19-22). So, you might be wondering what Enspire is: it is a student-run outreach event which will bring in nearly 400 local eighth graders from Pershing Middle School and Gompers Middle School to UCSD! That's right, I said 400!!! The event will consist of campus/lab tours, lunch, and a hands-on design competition!

I can hardly believe that we only began planning for Enspire a couple months ago. Even though we have taken care of a lot of logistical details, we still have a lot to do! We're most concerned about obtaining more volunteers and laboratories. Currently, we have a little over 45 volunteers signed up to help, however, we're aiming for approximately 150-200 volunteers for the event to be successful! For anyone who reads this and would like to volunteer, we're happy to accept any help between the hours of 8 am - 3 pm. Volunteer duties include leading campus/lab tours, being competition mentors (for the design competition), and set-up/clean-up. Participated volunteers will receive free breakfast, lunch, and an Enspire t-shirt! Additionally, if volunteers are worried about where to go or what to talk to these eager students about, we will have volunteer workshops next week and another one the day before Enspire. The workshops should provide volunteers with everything they need, and to ask any questions they have before the event. These workshops are still being worked out, so more details will come later! Regarding laboratories, I believe we have about 9 labs signed up. Woohoo! We still need more, especially since the students will be split into groups of 10 each. That means we will have approximately 40 groups of students walking around to see all types of different engineering labs, the engineering organization fair, along with seeing Geisel Library, the infamous snake path, Peterson Hill, Price Center, etc. My partner Stefanie Mah (Outreach Chair External) has done an excellent job of planning out all the logistical details for Enspire. Stefanie wants to ensure that these students have a great time no matter what!

We wish to thank Yoichi Shiga for coming up with the event name! You're the best, Yo! Also, many thanks to Michael Tartre for designing the Enspire logo AND coming up with the event's moto: "Introducing Engineering Futures to Our Youth." Jeffrey Mounzer, our TESC president, has done a tremendous job in securing funding for Enspire! Also, many of our outreach committee members have taken on leadership roles for Enspire. As you can see, many students are involved in the planning of Enspire. Great job, everyone!

I will be back again soon to give y'all another update on our progress. Are you excited? Let's show those students what engineering is all about!!!