Pre-Engineering Orientation 2024

Alex Dudley Author

10/04/2024 Added

3 Plays

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Pre-Engineering Orientation for students who are working toward a program in the College of Engineering.

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[00:00:08.039]Alex Dudley: Great. Hello! My name is Alex Dudley, and I am the Pre-Professional Coordinator in the Explore Center. Today I'm going to be talking a little bit about pre-engineering and just kind of do a general orientation for what it means to be a pre-engineering student.
[00:00:23.489]Alex Dudley: So our 1st for our agenda, we'll just start by talking about some pre-engineering or PENG basics, and then we'll talk about exploring and declaring engineering majors, pre-engineering success and engineering resources, College of Engineering student support staff, PENG myths, and then maximizing your time in the Explore Center.
[00:00:41.069]Alex Dudley: So 1st off, pre-engineering or PENG, pre-engineering or PENG are 2 words that mean the same thing. It's an advising track here at UNL for students that are interested in the College of Engineering, but have not yet declared. So these students are within the Explore Center, and so pre-engineering students, their advising track falls under the Explore Center. You might be a PENG student for a few reasons.
[00:01:04.459]Alex Dudley: The 1st might be, because you just don't know what major you want yet within the College of Engineering, you want to take a little time to explore, figure out exactly which major fits you. The other reason might be that you didn't meet the criteria to declare into the college. The College of Engineering does have some strict criteria. The criteria does differ, whether you are a new incoming student or whether you are a current student, and we'll talk about that criteria in a little bit.
[00:01:32.533]Alex Dudley: In the Explore Center, students can be PENG for up to a year. So you have your whole freshman year that you can be classified as a pre-engineering or PENG student. After that, you'd just be considered like an undeclared student. You don't have to stop attempting to get into the College of Engineering. But you no longer have that exact PENG designation.
[00:01:52.439]Alex Dudley: For your time as a PENG student, as I said, most of your advising will be through the Explore Center. Although we do encourage you to connect with your major advisor in the College of Engineering, or who will be your major advisor. So we think we encourage you to think of your year as PENG as a runway leading to your end goal, which is declaration into the College of Engineering.
[00:02:14.679]Alex Dudley: Alright. So exploring engineering majors, there's several different ways that pre-engineering students can explore different engineering majors. And we really encourage you to do this, whether you wanted to be a PENG student or you just didn't meet their criteria to declare. I encourage students to think of this as time that you can do some reflection and some thinking, and if anything, just kind of reestablish that you're on that path, that you think that you want to be down.
[00:02:38.189]Alex Dudley: So one way that students can do this would be to use the undergraduate catalog to discover the different College of Engineering majors and look at possible 4 year plans. You can start researching or just thinking about career paths that you see yourself taking.
[00:02:53.446]Alex Dudley: You can also just do, at the bottom here, I have a note about doing some separate self-reflection to discover your skills, interest values to make sure that the path you're on aligns with those important aspects. So those are all things that you can do on your own and just kind of start exploring. And then we have other things such as meeting with academic or career advisors, either in Engineering or Explore. We obviously have different expertise,
[00:03:17.009]Alex Dudley: But meeting with either of us is always a great option. You can learn more about the different engineering paths, majors, courses you'll be taking, timeline for graduations, career paths afterwards. So you can learn a lot from academic and career advisors. And then I encourage you to continue to attend workshops or listen to workshops like these, and others that are provided by the College of Engineering. So
[00:03:40.969]Alex Dudley: like, I said, if you are a pre-engineering student, I encourage you to take this year, or at least a semester to ensure. Do a little reflection, do a little thinking to ensure that engineering is the path you want to go on.
[00:03:54.529]Alex Dudley: Alright, so declaring your major into the College of Engineering, what does this look like? So the steps that involve this would include 1st just deciding on that major. So, as we talked about, that often involves doing some research, self-reflection, meeting with advisors. But once you've decided on that major, next is to meet the criteria, to declare a major into it into College of Engineering.
[00:04:15.559]Alex Dudley: So this is assuming that you are now a current student. If you are currently a current student. This is the criteria you need to declare. You need to have a 2.5 cumulative Gpa and be calc ready, or math. 1 0, 6 so those 2 in conjunction those are, make your criteria to declare.
[00:04:33.949]Alex Dudley: After you have met that criteria, you are then going to meet with a College of Engineering academic advisor to officially declare your major. So
[00:04:42.579]Alex Dudley: Because of the above criteria, the 2.5 GPA, and calc ready, the earliest you can be admitted once you are a PENG student admitted into the College of Engineering, would be after your 1st semester. So that's the 1st time you get a cumulative GPA and so that would be the the earliest you could get declared, if you were initially admitted as a pre-engineering student.
[00:05:03.739]Alex Dudley: After you meet with your major advisor for the 1st time, and they have you officially declare, after that you're going to just continue to work with the College of Engineering advisor to help you pick out classes and do degree planning. So once you hit that 3rd step of declaring, your time in the Explore Center does end, unless, of course, you change your mind or change your major later, or want any other pre-professional help.
[00:05:26.379]Alex Dudley: But at that point your advising duties will switch off to the College of Engineering as they are the experts within their within their college
[00:05:36.019]Alex Dudley: Alright. So this is just gonna take a couple minutes here to talk about succeeding within the classroom. So being a pre-engineering student and succeeding in the classroom can be difficult, because most of the majors in the College of Engineering do involve some tough courses and strict pathways. So if you don't already know you are, if you're interested in the College of Engineering, you would be looking at a decent amount of math and science requirements. And, like, I said, strict pathways. So
[00:06:03.519]Alex Dudley: most students, their 1st semester will be taking math and science, but that's appropriate to whatever their placement is. So it might be biology, it might be chemistry. It could also be MATH 103, MATH 101, or maybe you jumped right into calculus. So no matter what, though, you're definitely taking some sciences in your math, probably your 1st semester, and those can be challenging. So those are some tough classes, and it's important to recognize that early.
[00:06:28.929]Alex Dudley: I do want to reiterate that hard definitely does not mean impossible. But it may mean that you need some extra support.
[00:06:34.879]Alex Dudley: So we really encourage you to ask for help early, ask questions in classes, build connections with your professors and your peers, and know your resources, which we're
[00:06:43.479]Alex Dudley: going to talk about in just a second. So
[00:06:47.055]Alex Dudley: it can be really hard for PENG students at the beginning to get kind of a grasp on the courses that they're going to be taking and like I said, they're definitely not like things for freshmen to jump into. So we encourage you to think about that early on get help if you need it. Yeah.
[00:07:05.549]Alex Dudley: Alright. So speaking of resources, here are some of the College of Engineering resources that they have. So 1st up is NEST, or Nebraska Engineering Support and Tutoring. So this is free tutoring for all engineering and PENG students. We're going to go ahead and actually just take a quick look at their site here.
[00:07:26.709]Alex Dudley: Alright! So they have them for both City and Scott campus. The contact is Kendall Helling. If you do have any questions about it, it is on Kiewit Hall, A506
[00:07:38.979]Alex Dudley: and it just started, you know, a couple of weeks ago. And they have kind of down here to help you find your learning consultant that's going to be the most appropriate and best match for you. So the 1st thing that you can kind of put here is picking the subject area that you're interested in. Maybe you are in chemistry, this semester
[00:07:58.339]Alex Dudley: So you want some help there. And you're in CHEM 109, so you do that and then it's gonna give you the list of the learning consultants. So if you're obviously Lincoln based, you may pick Gabe there and then. Step 3. Find your learning consultant to the right. So we know that we're looking for Gabe. He's Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays. Great. That work should hopefully work well for us.
[00:08:21.579]Alex Dudley: So NEST is a wonderful opportunity, like, I said. They're more than happy to have our pre-engineering students utilize this resource as well. But yes, free tutoring through the College of Engineering.
[00:08:33.819]Alex Dudley: These are other students who have taken and done well in the courses. So nothing intimidating or scary about it. Just a really fantastic resource available.
[00:08:45.239]Alex Dudley: Alright.
[00:08:50.199]Alex Dudley: Alright, we'll continue on here.
[00:08:53.959]Alex Dudley: So next, up
[00:08:58.169]Alex Dudley: alright other resources that we have available here. We have CAST Study Stops. So this is a little broader. I do want to mention that the NEST, as far as math goes, it starts at the 106 level. So a lot of our PENG students may be starting in a lower level math, maybe Pre-calculus, MATH 103, Trigonometry, College Algebra. So if you do need support in one of those lower level math
[00:09:22.459]Alex Dudley: CAST has CAST Study Stops. I have also have learning consultants similar to NEST, other students who have taken and succeeded in the class and they have all the different levels of math. So CAST is a wonderful chance for that.
[00:09:35.149]Alex Dudley: And then we have a decent amount of resource centers here. So the Chemistry Research Center, Computer Science Engineering Resource Center and Math and Physics Resource Centers. So these are across campuses. You can find them simply by Googling and these are a little bit meant for less one on one tutoring a little bit more stop and go kind of help. So they're often run by T.A.'s in the department.
[00:10:00.224]Alex Dudley: And are easy ways for you to just stop in real quick, get some advice, get some questions answered and pop back out. So those are really awesome resources that are out there and that are always available for students to kind of swing in through.
[00:10:13.239]Alex Dudley: And then we have academic and career advisors that we already chatted a little bit about, as well as Academic Navigators. So Academic Navigators are there to kind of help more on the transitional side of education. So the social, personal, just making sure that you're transitioning well, things are going well, you're making friends, you're feeling like you belong here. So Navigators can be a really great resource if you're feeling like you could use some extra support there.
[00:10:41.709]Alex Dudley: Alright. And now I'm just gonna go a little bit deeper in the college's New Student Services staff. So they have a lot of student services staff over there. These are just a few of them. PENG students are highly encouraged to connect with College of Engineering staff during their 1st year at UNL. You can begin building connection with us, assessing your time and path, ask in depth questions that your Explore Center advisor may not know and kind of begin to see yourself, picture yourself as a College of Engineering
[00:11:06.489]Alex Dudley: student. So Academic Navigators, if you do meet with an academic advisor in the Explore Center, you will probably be encouraged to meet with an academic advisor in the College of Engineering. So the College of Engineering does a really fabulous job and makes it really pretty easy for students to figure out who their advisor is or will be based off of their engineering interest areas.
[00:11:30.959]Alex Dudley: So, for instance, if you saw yourself doing construction management, your City campus advisor would be Kendall Helling. And you can just click this link right here to schedule with her or click this link to send her an email if that's what you're looking for. So, and the Explore Center, we are very, very often encouraging our PENG students connect with their College of Engineering advisors because they truly do know more about the College of Engineering, the
[00:11:55.569]Alex Dudley: ins and outs of the programs, and can probably answer a lot of those questions that you're hoping to get answered. So definitely utilize these academic advisors. They're going to be really great for helping you get, you know...come up with a plan if you feel like you're off track, right? So maybe you had to start in a lower math or a lower science, and you want to know how you can get caught up so you can still graduate within 4 years. That's something they can do for you, and that kind of thing. So academic advisors over there a fantastic resource.
[00:12:24.059]Alex Dudley: And then we have their Academic Navigator, Nicole Binderup. So Nicole is actually going to be doing another one of our workshops later this next month in October, and she's going to be teaching just about like succeeding within the College of Engineering solely and just kind of support. So, I've personally worked with Nicole several times. She's really fantastic, very welcoming and engaging. And as I mentioned about Navigators, they're
[00:12:48.809]Alex Dudley: really there to help you kind of transition well, connect with you, help you kind of make
[00:12:54.499]Alex Dudley: progress through educational journey and just support you very holistically. So definitely recommend you connect with Nicole if that's something you feel like could be helpful.
[00:13:05.589]Alex Dudley: And then last, we have just kind of career advisors. This isn't the last, they have many, many more. But College of Engineering has a great career services. They have a great career team. And so Kayleen and Aleea here are 2 fantastic., they're 2 career coaches or career guides that you can schedule with. They're located also in Kiewit Hall. Mostly have virtual appointments, is my understanding
[00:13:30.929]Alex Dudley: And so they can help with exploring different areas within the College of Engineering. And they can help you, you know, when you're later on, going to career fairs, internships, jobs,
[00:13:45.709]Alex Dudley: connections overall. So this is a great way to kind of learn a little bit more about the College of Engineering. And then once you're in there to kind of continue in advance within the field of engineering. So I've been in contact with Paula recently, and we're hoping that we can have them kind of come over and also do a workshop talking about the different areas within College of Engineering.
[00:14:11.230]Alex Dudley: Overall, the College of Engineering has a lot more support, student services and support. And you just really have to kind of look forward or ask for it. So in the Explore Center, we're happy to help connect you over there and just make you more aware of the resources you'll have once you officially get over to engineering.
[00:14:31.109]Alex Dudley: Alright. So now we're going to talk about a few myths of being a PENG student. So one of the 1st one of the earliest or most common myths that I always hear is that "if you are a PENG student you don't have an advising home or college," which isn't true, you actually have 2! So I've said this a few times now, but your Explore Center is your official home as a PENG student. We are going to be your advising kind of main place to go to.
[00:14:55.856]Alex Dudley: We're going to help with most of your classes and planning your year or semester as a PENG student. But, as I mentioned, we also encourage you to start thinking as College of Engineering, as you're advising home or college as well, and utilizing the resources that they have available.
[00:15:11.059]Alex Dudley: Another myth is that "if you are a PENG student you can't graduate within 4 years." So this is one that I hear very, very often, and it's obviously a big fear for a lot of students.
[00:15:19.949]Alex Dudley: And I will say that it's not always 100% possible, but plenty of our PENG students graduate at the same time as students who were initially admitted into College of Engineering. There are several ways that students can catch up on requirements if they get off track. So like, I said, it's very common for PENG students to maybe take one level lower of math or science than they than their peers might be within, who are directly admitted into College of Engineering.
[00:15:43.299]Alex Dudley: That does not mean that you cannot graduate within the same time. It does mean that you'll want to work with your College of Engineering advisor once you get over there to kind of come up with a plan. Maybe that's taking a summer class here and there. Maybe that's overloading one semester over another, lots of different options. But if that is something that is important to you, and it's, you know, again, not always. I'm not going to say that always it is possible. But
[00:16:07.407]Alex Dudley: it's always worth having a conversation with your advisor, and it is possible
[00:16:11.746]Alex Dudley: for plenty of PENG students to do that. It's just always depends on your unique situation.
[00:16:18.569]Alex Dudley: Alright. So "if you're a PENG student, you can't use College of Engineering resources." Hopefully by the end of this presentation, or at this point, you know that that is untrue, and that College of Engineering, especially NEST, are open to all PENG students, and we encourage you to start utilizing those. And again thinking about yourself, viewing yourself as a student there.
[00:16:39.259]Alex Dudley: Alright. And then, "if you're a PENG student, you can't succeed as an engineering student." Some students feel like being set up as PENG is a punishment, or that it is saying that they do not have the ability to succeed within the College of Engineering. That is not true, and it's something we absolutely want to debunk. You can, 100% still succeed within the College of Engineering, even if you start as PENG. We have students that do it every single semester. And we have, every single semester, students are able to declare.
[00:17:03.799]Alex Dudley: And then every year we have students that are graduating. So we truly in the Explore Center and as university as a whole, believe in your abilities, and we're here to help you reach your goals. So your path, like I said, may look a little bit different from others, but each of your experiences are going to contribute to the perspective that you bring to the College of Engineering and the field of engineering as a whole. So,
[00:17:25.489]Alex Dudley: We like, I said, we believe in you, and we are going to help you kind of reach those goals, even if it looks a little bit different or it's unique for what you're bringing in.
[00:17:36.479]Alex Dudley: Alright, maximizing your time in the Explore Center. So we understand that being in an Explore Center student may not have been your original plan. You may have been assuming that you're gonna start directly into the College of Engineering, but we do encourage you to use the best of your time as a PENG student in the Explore Center. Here are some ways we recommend doing that. So utilizing these resources, such as workshops, events as well.
[00:18:01.129]Alex Dudley: things like that. Taking time to and intentionally explore majors in and out of College of Engineering. Like I said, you're already here for a year, you might as well make sure that what you're doing is definitely what you want to do, and there's nothing else that might be intriguing you and then utilize the resources that we have in the Explore Center: advisors, academic career and navigators. We are truly here to help you, and we want you to succeed your goals
[00:18:25.625]Alex Dudley: Probably almost as much as you want to succeed those goals. So we're going to be here for you, and we're going to help you kind of navigate your way over to the College of Engineering if that's is your main goal.
[00:18:37.779]Alex Dudley: Alright, thank you all so much. Here's just some quick information of where you can find the Explore Center and the College of Engineering. We in the Explore Center are located in Love Library South, 127. Our normal hours are 8:30 to 5, and then we have drop-ins every day. Monday, through Friday, from 10AM to 4PM. College of Engineering in Kiewit Hall is located in A641, and they also have normal working hours 8:30AM to 5PM.
[00:19:05.079]Alex Dudley: Thank you all very much for your time and for listening today! I hope you all have a great rest of your day.

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Pre-Engineering Orientation 2024

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