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ME Alumni Connect Day enjoyed another great turnout this year, with over 40 alumni and nearly 400 students participating. The event provides an opportunity for students to connect with alumni, build their network and gain insight into what it's like to be an practicing engineer.

Participants connected over lunch, mock interviews, and across 12 class panels in Material Science, Dynamics, Thermodynamics, Heat Transfer, Manufacturing, System Dynamics, Advanced Product Design, and Mechatronics.

Professional Development Advisor Katherine McConnell, who organized the event, highlighted the value of activities such as class panels. "If a student is enjoying certain course material, they can speak with an alum and learn how that material might translate into a future career and how it might come into play later,” said McConnell.

The event is also a chance to help engineering students understand that they don’t have to know everything right away.

“We have the alumni come in and say, ‘It’s important to learn all this information, but that doesn't mean that you have to be able to recite it from memory ten years later,’” said McConnell. “There are resources along the way and you build skills in the direction that your career goes.”

Above all, becoming an engineer is a journey.

Fourth-year undergraduate said she enjoyed seeing where a degree in mechanical engineering has taken the alumni she met at ME Alumni Connect Day.  

“It's a great chance to network with people who once stood in my shoes and see where their life has led them, as well as connecting with my own peers in the major,” said Mi-Han Conard.