Each year, the student-led organization SiGMA (Sibley Graduates in Mechanical and Aerospace) holds an annual research symposium, funded by industry and academic sponsors.
An important component is networking with a panel of career professionals in academia, industry, startups, and national labs to represent the wide variety of careers students in mechanical and aerospace engineering end up in.
This year, in addition to prizes for the most clearly communicated research presentations, students were invited to compete for the best artistic rendition of their research.
A big event like this doesn’t come together without a lot of effort from its organizers, so today we are looking under the hood at the graduate student committee who put together this year’s Sibley Graduate Research Symposium.
Kaylin Borders chaired the planning committee, and identified the Create Your Own Activity funding mechanism from the Graduate School Career and Professional Development office as an important way to strengthen the group’s efforts.
Borders (pictured second from left, along with other committee members Wiley Kirks, Varun Rao, and Emmanuel Sunday Ameh), says, “Serving as the symposium planning chair was an incredibly rewarding experience. In this role, I assembled and worked with a planning committee to organize a full-day event that highlighted graduate student research, professional development, and community building within the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.”
The day’s activities included a career panel, a skills workshop, graduate research talks, and a reception that gave students the opportunity to connect with peers, faculty, and professionals in a more informal setting.
“With support from Careers Beyond Academia, we were able to incorporate new programming that helped students think more broadly about career pathways beyond graduate school,” Borders said.
Borders reflects on how the experience helped her gain leadership and event-planning skills, including coordinating across teams, managing logistics, and creating programming that served both multiple goals. Other committee members had roles ranging from emcee’ing the talks and moderating career panels, to graphic design, marketing, outreach and securing sponsorships, organizing networking events, and coordinating prizes.
Winners of the presentation categories included:
- Overall Presentation: Azadeh Fathi
- Oral Communication: Siamand Lalisani
- Scientific Rigor: Kelly Jiang
- Drafting the Future: Stephan Wagner
- Art Award: Shiseido Robinson
To top off the day, Susi Varvayanis from the Graduate School’s Careers Beyond Academia program facilitated a hands-on workshop to help students build and tailor their resumes for the careers they seek, focusing on crafting bullet points and clarifying what value and skills they would bring to an employer of choice.
“Most importantly, the event reinforced the value of creating spaces where graduate students can share their work, build community, and explore the many career paths available to them,” Borders said.
If you have an idea and are looking for mentoring to pull it off, contact the Graduate School to learn more about Create Your Own Activity funding.
