Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering Webinar

Yeah, I did that, yes. So I asked David to send me the link to get that 200.

Right. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening everyone. My name is Junuja, then I have Amirth Chip Geldof and I have also Karen Lewis from HELP which is going to help your first year academic performance. And then we have a student representative from 4th year student, I think some Akhilera and also maybe of like secondary third year I think. So if you have a question that you can ask them as well so.

Let's go. So we're going to talk about why Technical Institute and Environment Engineering Program is the best choice for you. And there are three reasons I'm going to go through three of them. So those of you who are going to see us, I'm just showing you.

How can I? Yes, who we are. So we have Chip and myself, Chinucida and the others here.

So today I'm going to talk about why you you should choose us. So there's three reasons. Number one is a history. We just turned 200 years old, and the number 2, the resources and #3 people. So we have very nice people and very long history.

So we're going to go through 1 by 1. So let's start with a history or before that though. So if you have questions, you can type in chat box and then we will answer that Q&A at the end.

It's going to be about 15 minute presentation or so, right? Let's start with a history.

So like I said it's we are we just turned 200 years old and we are the oldest technological university in English speaking countries founded 1824 and we have the first civil engineering degree in the United States of America. So we have a very long, long history and also we have first environment engineering degree in the world 1961. So because of that very long history we have.

Very famous alumni's all around the world. George Ferris who invented Ferris wheel and many other people and because of the history what this long history brings here to you is this. The three are mainly 3 things. One is this very important recognition as many civilian environment engine knows us. So I I experience this daily when I go anywhere and do presentation.

Everyone comes to me. Oh, you're from RPI. It's a good school. So everyone knows us. And so we recognize most nationally and internationally because we have very, very long history.

Another thing is connection. We are strongly tied with a civil and environmental communities locally as well as nationally and internationally as well. So you will have many opportunities to meet and make connections with those people and to intern for them. So it's very especially civil and environment engineering practice is very connected. So it's connections very, very important and you'll all appreciate that when when you get to here.

And another thing is stability.

So we've contributed to society for a long, long time and continue to do so. So we here before and we're here now. That means we'll be here in the future too. So that long history brings many things and there's a very nice article. If you have a chance, have a have a look.

This is the done by one of the ASC American Society of Civil Engineers magazine and they said.

They as in US RPI, they build America or we built America. That might be a bit of a stretch, but not too much of A stretch because we because we started civil engineering pretty much. So we built America.

So once we get to here then you become the part of this long history, 200 years now and RPI brand is as important as civilian environment engineering degree itself. So you will embrace that long history. So when you join us you will find out more about that.

That's the very first reason. Second reason is resources. We have a state of our resource facilities and this is my area of expertise, Geotechnical Centrifuge.

Well, I'm not going to talk into details, but then this does many great research while leading researches.

We have other one hydraulic flume, earthquake shake tables.

Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. So what we normally would be very focused on or emphasise.

Is hands on experience? Yes, it's important to learn.

Materials in lecture, the normal lecture, but but definitely you have to go to lab and then touch soils, water and see how it move, behaves. So that's very, very, very important and we have very nice facilities.

So in terms of education, it's great. And also in terms of sorry, research, these facilities have helped us conducting world leading research and you'll use this in your design class applying fundamental principles for engineering solutions. So yes, they're link again, this is QR code.

And this we've widowed when it's COVID time, so I think the tour guide is masking maybe.

But you can go through those when you have time and see how it looks like we we updated them, I mean like as facilities more advanced now slightly more advanced than the this COVID time but then.

Basic idea is the same, so we have very world leading facilities.

And in terms of research students, American Society of Civil Engineers, AC student chapter.

We American Society of Civil Engineers started about 18501860 and a student chapter started in 1920. So this is one of the oldest student chapter and we've been recognized Our contribution to society and the students does many, many things.

I can go on a list many things, but we just recently.

Hosted a student chapter event that's this weekend. So we invited students from different universities around this area and a student did a fantastic job. So you you get involved and then those opportunities you have.

You meet practice engineer locally and nationally.

So it's a great opportunity and great resources so.

Embrace that opportunity when you come here.

That's a student chapter, AC American Society of Civil Engineers student chapter, which is very, very unique for us. It's one of the oldest and it's very highly recognised.

Another thing is resources on campus we have ALAC which is called Academic Support, Learning Assistant Centre, Academic and Personal Support. I'm reading the first line hub. Yes, Karen Rose is here at class Deans ALAC which is academic learn assist, Academic Learning assistance centre I think and clubs and sports and activities. Students do sports like participate in many club opportunities.

And then also we do undergo.

Undergraduate research as well. So if you're interested in doing research why you're still undergrad students, we have opportunities as well.

And number four, other services such as shops and libraries and computing offices. So we have many resources.

And world leading research resources as well. So yes, that's the second important part or second reasons why you should choose us. Yes, so your time here just to conclude the resource part, your time here will be full of excitement activities.

And supported by advanced facilities and advising resources and varieties of clubs.

Right. And last but not the least, the reason, main reason actually me personally, the main reason why I'm here is because of people. So here, these are our faculties here And before going individual, I'm going to go into individual very carefully. But then let me just skim through in terms of research what we do a civil engineering, the uniqueness of civil engineering is we have.

In US we have 5 concentration, structural engineering, Geotechnical engineering, transportation engineering, Environmental engineering and water resource engineering. And they we yes it's a civil project, civil and environmental project or degree, but we.

Dealing with many things and so interconnected, so knowing one thing is not enough for us. So it's very important for us to be able to be a good communicator, a good engineer, so you have to know many things. And then we do this. We offer that having five different what we call concentration. First one is structural engineering. We have 5 faculties.

Head of the departments, one of them. So we have a world reading lease research, so we have a snow load called development.

There are many other things as well and second one is transportation engineering.

We have centre, so we have 5 faculties here as well. We have centre and this centre is recognised all around the world. We have constantly have visited very renowned researchers from all around world visiting us to do, to collaborate and then do presentation and get to know what we do here.

Environment engineering. Chip is here so he can talk more about that. If you have a question about research, we have 4 faculties here and then do.

Give me a second.

Yes, water purification is one of your research chip, I think. Yeah, many other things that contribute in the purifying world of making a world a better place. That's what environment engineers does. And so yeah, it's it's a great program, a great researchers or great people obviously.

And next is the 4th line is.

Oops, excuse me. This is your technical engineering. This is what I do. We have 4 faculties. We work with many industries or federal government or federal institution. I personally work with Department of Energy. So I do energy, what we call energy geotechnics. But then yeah, civil. Sorry. Geotech. Geotech soil is fundamental foundation of everything really. So we look at the soil deformation.

Then last but not least, water resource engineering. Water is becoming very, very important resource. So this is going to be very, very important topic. This is somewhere between environmental and geotech or combination both. And like I said, it's civil engineering so interconnected. So we do this research, individual faculties does many wonderful things at the same time we connect very strongly together.

So those of you who are interested in doing research, you can reach out to us individually about research.

But I me personally, yes, research is important, but people are more important. And the reason why I'm here is so this is I want to conclude this presentation. My personal opinion I've been to well, if you haven't noticed, I have got very weird accent. I've been to five different universities in five different countries and and then I'm obviously biased I think, but the RP is the best. The reason is because of those three reasons and particularly.

People, people, yes, people. RBI is the best because of history and reasons and then people, yes, we are very relatively small size and I think it's precisely because that we very we get on very well. So I know Chip what he does and what he knows what I do not just research but he knows my hobby like many other things. So family like here's what I'm saying, all civilian environment engineering professors and staff are very close.

Dave David knows my my son.

So yes, we're very close and a part of the family Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute family feeling. So that's why I'm here and that's why I'm very happy to be here and that's why I'm very happy to recommend you to come here because we become part of family if you come here.

Yes. So that with that I want to conclude the presentation. Thank you very much and I will happy to take your questions. Thank you very much.

Chip, do you want to say a little bit more about environmental? And then I'm sure Sam and Amelia can give their take on the student side of it.

Well, hello. Can you hear me OK? OK, great. I'm Samantha Archuleta and I'm a fourth year. And one thing I'd like to mention about RPI is that the faculty are really great and they really help you out and they want to teach you and they want you to basically push yourself to the best person, the best engineer that you can be. I know in a lot of my classes we talk about engineering judgement and how that's so important when you're going into the field and when you face.

A lot of issues that are arising in the world today and how you go about it.

And I think one of the cool things about RPI is I'm concentrating in geotechnical engineer, but engineering, but I don't have to just stay in that field like I also participated in the ASCE Steel Bridge competition. So it's just more of RPI has all of these extracurricular activities, all of these things that you could do to become a better engineer and basically get that experience and basically learn more.

To add on to that for sure, faculty is great here. I'd say it's such a small school, relatively, that professors will know you by name. You can just go into their office hours whenever you need help with. Even if it's just a question on a homework assignment, they'll be willing to help you and they want you to succeed here. I've really noticed that a lot here, and to speak more on ASCE, I'm treasurer of that and.

Basically we'll have people from other companies come in and talk to us and.

You I know a lot of people who have gotten internships just from coming to a singular meeting.

And it can be in any of the concentrations that we've talked about so far, which I think is really great.

Amelia provided the perfect segue because we have a question about internships.

The question is how early you can can you become involved in internships?

Well, if you want, I could speak to it or Sam, go ahead, give me your perspective 1st and then I'll weigh in after.

I don't You can basically participate in an internship as early as you want. It's more of RPI does offer those connections, as Amelia mentioned. So you could write freshman year into an internship and get that experience.

So.

Yeah, honestly, that's another nice thing. You can get right into an internship right away. I'm currently a freshman and I'm looking into a TCI position with the dot Department of Transportation, and I'm just at Part 2 of the interview process. So just right there, it's it's easy to get an internship once you have those connections already.

Chip here on mute.

It's a transportation construct and inspector.

I can also weigh in that our Career Center hosts two career well, has one career fair in the February month of spring, and then we also have another career fair in the fall semester where we encourage even freshmen to attend. Even if you're here for two weeks, we tell you to go to the career fair, be a family on the wall, because you know you can make those network connections as early as freshman year. And I do have a lot of freshman students who do participate in internships that first summer.

Between freshman and sophomore year, So it's definitely something that you can do. You have to be a little bit of an advocate, but we're here to support you in our Career Center.

Enhance that support by providing a lot of contact information with the companies that we currently have relationships with and we do resume critiquing as well.

I'm happy to talk about Arch SO for civil and environmental engineering.

Basically the arch. If anybody is not familiar with the program, it is a summer semester at RPI. So after your sophomore semesters of fall and spring, you will remain on campus for summer taking courses, and then civil and environmental engineers both have their away semester. It's a shift in the academic calendar, so your summer gets shifted to fall in theory, so you go away in fall just like you would in a normal summer semester.

And that gives you an opportunity to receive support in different aspects from the Career Center If you want to pursue an internship or a Co-op. The fall semester is a little bit less competitive during the summer semesters, so it gives students a leg up to have that opportunity. And you can also do independent studies. You can do courses away from RPI if you wanted to catch up on your studies. There's plenty of different options that you could do with that fall semester.

But basically you would return in spring and resume your studies. So instead of having a typical fall, spring semester academic year, you would have a summer, spring, academic year. And you know, a lot of students pursue the internship option, but there's a list of opportunities that you could do and you can customize your own even. So that's that's what our urge program kind of looks like at this point.

I haven't had any lately. I do have a couple of civil engineers who duel with some of the humanities disciplines. For example, I have a civil that's dueling currently with economics, so that is something that can be applicable. A lot of the humanities department majors are compatible for duels, so usually what I recommend and I am your first year advisor so when you come to RPI you will be meeting with me specifically.

To kind of work out the logistics, all the transfer credits, everything that you bring to RPI, we kind of shift through and those would be the conversations that we could have based off of your interests. You know, if you have interests outside of engineering, it's OK and we can make those work into your curriculum as well. So that's kind of what I do in my office. So we're here to support you with those duels. And you know, Professor Kilduff said that there is a lot of dual options. The way that duels work is that we mesh up the curriculum of two different majors and.

If there is a lot of overlap, you can feasibly do it within the four year timeline. If there's not as much overlap, that's something that you and I would talk about because it might extend your time here or we could come up with different solutions whether it be a Master's program or minors or something to that extent. So those are the things that you would kind of address with me in in the in the school of engineering advising hub.

Yeah, we have another one ahead of it. I'll read it to you if you want to answer because they wanted to ask about the introductory courses in civil engineering and when do you declare a concentration?

Awesome. OK, we have another one here.

What are the options to study abroad in the C&E Engineering while remaining on track? Are there study abroad options for that during post arch time semester?

Now I can speak to that a little bit because I do a little bit of the study abroad planning with my first year students.

Usually on every curriculum, including the civil and environmental curriculums, there are free electives which mean that those courses can be anything you want. And we also have humanities courses. So when I have students who are planning to go abroad, I I request that they reserve some of their free electives and humanities credits, just as a backup plan.

In the instance that the school that they choose is not dominant in engineering curriculums, but there are plenty of schools that we are affiliated with that offer engineering programs.

It's a it's a it is a process to plan for a study abroad semester, but we do support study abroad during the archaway semesters, so that would be the fall semester of junior year for civil and environmental engineers. So it's definitely a possibility.

And when students come in and express where they want to go, we kind of plan that around that and usually we shoot for 12 to 16 credits. And if we go for an affiliated program, the students would pay tuition to RPI and everything would be taken care of through that process. So that's kind of an overview of what study abroad looks like. But to answer that question, it is an option and we do, we're we're starting to Rev up again since COVID, it did go on a hiatus for quite some time, but.

The study abroad program is starting to pick up again.

And we have another one. Is it odd this was the question you were going to read before? Is it odd to have a civil and nuclear engineering dual major or even an environmental and nuclear dual?

The.

Let me piggyback on that too, because if you are bringing a lot of credits into RPI, whether it be a PIB or dual enrollment credits, those give you a lot of flexibility within the curriculum to incorporate those nuclear courses if you choose to. So that's something that you're going to want to have a conversation with me about when you get here and we'll break it all down for you and see what it looks like.

Have another one Samantha and Amelia have you either of you studied abroad or had any friends? Who did? And was it difficult to organize?

Absolutely.

Can I just interrupt for a minute? Karen. Chris, let's get here. Head of department. Oh, and Sean is here now too, 'cause my computer, the Internet is so bad. Oh. Oh dear.

Samantha and Amelia, As you can tell, I'm not an American and so I absolutely encourage study abroad.

And we've sent in the past students to Singapore, to Denmark, to Australia.

And England, it is harder now with the ARCH program and so really you need to plan ahead for it, but it's absolutely encouraged and you'll get all the support you can want from the head of department.

But I've got another appointment now, so I'm gonna have to dash. But please, Sean can help up. Yeah. Yeah. So I I wanted to, I wanted to talk about that because two of my advisers went to abroad. Denmark actually. And then Karen mentioned you could take a credit, which is.

Broader half courses or half courses, but then that those students actually took civil courses there it's transferable because they Denmark this DTU is affiliated. So you can, you can.

Do this transfer credit but also one of them went to which is not affiliated but that's through paperwork. We can definitely do transfer credits because you can take this very similar courses different universities. So yes, I do encourage students to go abroad, yes, like head of the department said, it becomes harder because of the art but if you plan then you can definitely do that, yes.

Umm, I personally haven't studied abroad, but I do know umm one of my friends did in Australia. And basically if you plan and work with your advisor it's an easy becomes an easier process.

I also have not done a study abroad on my first year, so I don't really know anybody either who has done it.

We do have a study abroad office that you know and a website if you choose to check it out. It lists our affiliated and non affiliated relationships and goes over the guidelines of how to start the process, how to start thinking about the process and you know it gives you a list of ideas and student testimonials so it would be worth checking out.

The, the credits actually will come in as named courses with grades so that it's almost like an extension of the school and all of the tuition goes towards the tuition at the other schools. So there's no disruption of your what you pay is what you pay. So everything is planable. It's much, much more streamlined. But we do have a ton of students that have said they wanted to go into a particular place that wasn't affiliated and.

Granted, they would have to pay tuition to that institute rather than to us, but we do assist with all of the planning as well. It's just a little bit of a different format.

I have one thing to say, just some general housekeeping. If you have committed to RPI and you're coming here, we will be in touch with you. I'm going to be reaching out and probably the last week of June and we're going to start doing some conversations and webinars in regards to course planning for the fall semester. So keep an eye out for that. Make sure you set your RPI e-mail up and check it frequently because you're going to start getting blasted by me soon, so.

Get ready, but as hopefully we see you in the fall. So that's my my words and I'm going to go on mute now.

We actually have one too, if you're willing to. It's asked about capstone engineering projects.

Yeah. On that Capstone project, it's one of the things we started focusing on is your group is consists of geotech concentration, transportation and concentration structure because different concentrations and one of the skills that you really need to have when you become a real engineer is communication skill because your designs are not necessarily best designed for other disciplined persons. So how are you going to communicate, how are you going to come up with the best out of everyone project is very, very important aspect. So that's that's.

One of the things we really highly value and then we're really proud of what how we set up our team to do capsule projects.

Umm, I was an undergrad research for Geo Explorer and currently still AM. And I think it was a great experience because it gives you hands on and it kind of gives you the background that you need and kind of more of depending on the concentration that you go in for a civil engineering depends on the type of research that you'll get. So I think it was a great experience and I'm excited to continue it further on.

I haven't done any research, no, but I think Samantha laid it out very nicely.

Geo Explorer.

Yes.

Yeah, the.

It's like a virtual environment to basically help students get field experience online. Because I know.

It's difficult for students to get that hands on field experience prior to internships, so Geo Explorer acts as a way to basically teach students how to get hands on experience before they go out into the field depending on. Basically we have a model for CPT, cone penetration testing, and levee inspections, which you'll learn more about.

In Intro to Geo.

Yeah, undergraduate research is a very good opportunity because because of that Samantha you're looking for about having trying to get to the grad school somewhere else. So I know that and also one of my advisers who did underground research with me.

She she got a job and so she did a bit of a practice engineering thing for about two years. But then she decided she realized that she really liked the research, so she gone back to research area and she did PhD. She is about to finish her PhD.

Politically and yes, he's going to be a doctor and her research and degree research with me won the word with the school of engineering. So it's it's very nice, not really stepping stone but then first step to explore yourself.

Research environment, whether you like it or not. If you don't, then you don't have to carry on. So yeah, it's a good opportunity, definitely.

Thank you.

Is there anything further or am I OK to leave the meeting?

I suggest me.