SHINE Students Take the Lead

Feedback by SHINE students

At the SHINE cohort meeting on Friday 13, 2018, SHINE began with a brief overview of USC Viterbi poster conventions in preparation for the SHINE Poster Session on 8/2/2018 from 1:30 – 3:30.  

But we quickly ceded the floor to the SHINE student themselves who assembled into groups and made list to reflect upon the SHINE experience at week 3. Each group made two lists featuring the things they have learned already from SHINE and the things they wish to learn as SHINE continues. 

In the “Things We Have Learned” lists, the students listed specific skills like MATLAB basics and Annotated Bibliography conventions. But they also mentioned more general life lessons, like what college is like, that communication is key, to step out of their comfort zones, and how academic research has a lot of "down time." 

And in the “Things We Want to Learn” lists (see above), the students anticipated upcoming SHINE programs and alerted us to exciting new programming ideas that we might develop further.  

Several groups asked for advice on how to get into college. These students will likely benefit from the upcoming panel on Friday, 7/27/2018, which will feature SHINE alumni and USC Viterbi’s Senior Assistant Director of Undergraduate Admissions, Rebecca Beiter.  

On one list, a group asked great questions like “how to pursue engineering during the school year” and hoped for more opportunities to “see the engineering behind everyday things.” Ideas like these will help us make SHINE 2018 the best year yet. 

We ended the session with an exercise that drew upon public speaking skills, another request featured in a “What We Want to Learn” poster. Evan, Joon-ha, and Skyler volunteered to address the whole cohort on the topic of their SHINE research this summer.  

Because of their initiative, these students not only modeled how STEM researchers share and defend their work to a broader engineering audience, but they also practiced their presentations for the upcoming Certificate Ceremony, which will take place from 3:30 – 5 PM on Thursday, 8/2/2018.