Marshall’s SAME-ASCE student chapter held its annual winter technical conference providing engineering students with project funds, job opportunities, and current information about their future field.

Engineering professionals and Marshall University engineering students learned about advancements in the field and made connections at the 10th Annual Richard F. McCormick Technical Conference Thursday, which was conducted by the Marshall University Society of American Military Engineers – American Society of Civil Engineers (SAME-ASCE) student chapter.

“[The Richard F. McCormick Technical Conference] is a fundraiser for SAME-ASCE here at Marshall, and we use the money to fund the Virginia Conference where we take a steel bridge and concrete canoe and compete against fourteen other schools,” said Megan Bates, junior electrical engineering major and Marshall University SAME-ASCE chapter president.

The chapter has been competing at the Virginia Conference since 2012 and have brought home several awards each year.

The conference also provides chapter members with networking opportunities. Members leave their resumes out on the tables for conference participants to look through.

“They can leaf through them, and if anything stands out, they can contact us, and on breaks we can go out and talk to them and network ourselves,” said Kyra Meadows, sophomore electrical engineering major and Marshall University SAME-ASCE chapter member. “If you’re looking for an internship, Co-Op, actual job, trying to get into grad school- it’s good for all that.”

While providing students with project funds and potential job opportunities, the conference also serves to educate engineers as to what is happening in their field.

“(The Richard F. McCormick Technical Conference) helps educate our engineers of the state so that we can maintain our infrastructure,” said Caleb Mitchell, senior civil engineering major and Marshall University SAME-ASCE chapter vice-president. “There’s been a lot of news about its degrading and there’s been a lot of news about wanting to improve that infrastructure with our current administration. This event is fundamental to our engineering understanding of our infrastructure.”

The Marshall University SAME-ASCE chapter will compete in the 2018 ASCE Student Conference in Virginia March 22-24.

Ginny Blake can be contacted at [email protected].