Category Archives: Events

New CEE Undergraduate Student Orientation

This past weekend marked the first “New Student CEE Orientation”, hosted by ASCE in conjunction with other CEE student organizations and the Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. The goal was to give incoming freshmen and transfer students an idea of the opportunities that civil engineering provides both as a student and after graduation. As an organization, we have found that students become more involved in their sophomore and junior years once they begin to take more CEE-oriented classes. We encourage freshmen to participate in any civil or environmental organizations right from the start as it provides students with more exposure to CEE as an industry as well as a network of other like-minded individuals.

To our delight, the event proved to be a success! There was an attendance of approximately 15 new students, which was quite a good turn out considering the small size of the department. The event kicked off with an introduction to the department by the department chair, Dr. Lucio Soibelman. He gave a warm welcome to all of the new students and an interesting overview of the faculty and their research.

Alumni panel shares their experiences with new students.
Alumni panel shares their experiences with new students.

Next up was an alumni panel comprised of four current professionals who all studied at USC as undergraduates and some as graduate students as well. There were a good variety of the various disciplines of CEE represented on the panel, with structural design, building enclosure systems, construction, and water services included. The alumni had much insight to share with the participants – both new students and upperclassmen facilitators! They described their experiences as undergraduate students, their involvements, and life working as an industry professional. Notably, every panelist strongly recommended getting involved in student organizations as early as possible, and every panelist eventually pursued a Master’s degree. It was especially valuable hearing about what they specifically do within their disciplines.

New students and upperclassmen eat lunch and get to know each other in E-Quad.
New students and upperclassmen eat lunch and get to know each other in E-Quad.

The alumni panel was followed by a much appreciated lunch break, during which all of the students, both old and new, mingled while eating a delicious lunch cooked by our very own Doc! After lunch, some of the ASCE upperclassmen gave brief presentations about their respective emphases including overviews of Building Science, Environmental, and Structural. The event concluded with pitches from all of the CEE organizations including ASCE, Chi Epsilon, ITE, EERI, and CMAA.

EERI explains their competition and encourages students to join.
EERI explains their competition and encourages students to join.

We really enjoyed putting on such a successful event, and we have lots of ideas for hosting something similar together for next year!

Join us for the Fall 2014 CEE Student Orgs Tailgate!

Team huddle selfie.

Please join us for the Fall 2014 CEE Student Orgs Tailgate! Meet members from USC’s American Society of Civil Engineers,  Construction Management Association of America, Institution of Transportation Engineers, Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, and Chi Epsilon Civil Engineering Honors Society. Food and drink will be provided.

Date: October 4th, 2014
Time: 11:30am-4:30pm
Location: Email to be sent day of with confirmation

Please contact our social chairs at social@uscasce.com with any questions. See you there!

Community Service Event: Vine St. Elementary Edible Garden

A group of USC ASCE members got up early on this Saturday morning to help completely rebuild an edible garden at Vine St. Elementary School. Tomás O’Grady of Enrich LA led a team of about 80 volunteers to clear out the old, unmaintained garden and build new raised beds, an irrigation system, a wooden fence, and picnic tables. After six hours in the sun, construction was complete and other groups began planting a variety of vegetables. We got valuable experience that will benefit our design teams’ work, including sanding (we’ll sand our concrete canoe), staining (also staining the canoe), and piping a irrigation system (our environmental design team’s system consists of pipes). Overall, it was a great experience, and we hope to be able to participate in another similar event soon!

We’ll be at the Viterbi New Student Luau tomorrow (Thursday, August 22nd, 2013) to greet all of the incoming civil and environmental engineers and tell you more about ASCE. Be sure to stop by our table and say hi!

PSWC 2013 Day 1: Canoe & Bridge Aesthetics

The highlight of PSWC day 1 is the concrete canoe and steel bridge aesthetics competition. Since we’re hosting PSWC this year, the event took place at the heart of the USC campus, in Alumni Park. Various other events took place today, including the Environmental Design competition.