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As a first year engineering student, choosing your engineering discipline can be daunting. Students enter First Year Engineering form a variety of positions in terms of their certainty of major choice. I have been interested in Biomedical Engineering since high school. The summer before my first year of college, I spent a lot of time researching the work that Biomedical Engineers do and the education process at Purdue. This research allowed me to confirm my desire to choose BME as my number one choice when the survey in spring came around. (The first week of February, all of the first year engineering students receive a survey email that they fill out with their top two choices of disciplines for the following years.) A friend of mine, Allison, had a different experience with her decision making process. She explains she was cautious to choose engineering in the first place but she always enjoyed math and science. For students still exploring, it is beneficial that Purdue has the gener...

Krissy Berlage Civil Engineering Find out more about Civil Engineering here ! Favorite Part of Engineering: “Learning something that will make a difference! I want to work on water purification one day in a developing country, and each course takes me one step closer to that goal.” Best thing about Purdue : “All the opportunities. I can join a club for literally anything I’m interested: helping kids, my faith, dance, engineering. There’s so much help for homework/classes, and everyone is so friendly and helpful - you can ask anyone on campus for directions, etc. and they’ll gladly help.” Fun Purdue Memory : “A fun memory was the first week of freshman year and the craziness of it! There were so many people, such a big campus, so many things to do - it was overwhelming in a great way! Another great one was my Maymester in Germany for engineering.” Why Krissy Loves Purdue : “I love Purdue because of how well it’s preparing me for the future. Employers LOVE seeing Purdue on a resume. Pro...

Last week at Purdue we had our annual career fair, EXPO 2016 (http://www.purdueesc.org/careerfairs/expo2016/studentcenter/information/).  EXPO is a one day event in which a variety of companies come and recruit for job positions; it was held in Mackey Arena.  For engineering, this is one of the biggest career fairs of the spring semester!  All engineering majors are encouraged to go, as this is a great job recruiting opportunity for any type of engineering.  Over 160 companies came to EXPO this year, with big names such as Honda, Microsoft, PepsiCo, and many more.  To help prepare, the Purdue CCO had many workshop events to help students, such as resume reviewing, elevator pitch practicing, and mock interviews.  In addition, there was a very helpful phone app for the career fair that listed the companies that would be there, provided a map for the event, and provided tips for preparing and going through the career fair.  In addition to EXPO 2016, there...

Alexandra (Lexy) Ackerman Interdisciplinary Engineering Find out more about Interdisciplinary Engineering here ! Favorite Part of Engineering:  “I love the challenge associated with the problem solving and the opportunity to break traditional stereotypes.” Best thing about Purdue:   “Purdue is welcoming to all backgrounds and helps its students become the best version of themselves.” Fun Purdue Memory:   “During freshman year, my friends and I surprised the people we were racing for the fountain run by running it a whole ten minutes faster! Come to find out, we missed a fountain.” Why Lexy Loves Purdue:  “I love Purdue because it is a legacy that has been passed through three generations and five people in my family.”

The start of a new semester means a multitude of things: new opportunities, new positions, new experiences, and also new classes, which mean new schedules and new routines. While starting fresh seems to be ideal for many college students, it can be stressful. What I have learned during my time at Purdue is that organization is crucial . Setting up a schedule immediately and sticking to it the first couple of weeks helps to get you on track for the semester.  Plan times in your day in between classes to go to a café/library and work on homework or catch up on material for your classes. Even if you don’t have a specific assignment to work on, setting aside specified times helps to get into a routine for the semester.  I have also learned to take advantage of Supplementary Instruction (SI). SI sessions are student run help sessions for many of Purdue’s main courses. Attending these informal sessions will help you to stay on top of the material you are learning in class. At the be...