By Rosemary Peters
Ten years ago if you asked any engineers on campus what their favorite week of the year was, the answer would be a resounding chorus of "Engineering Week."
"E-Week used to be a huge deal on campus," Engineering Program Counselor Kitty Harmon said. "There used to be a barn dance, slides, a trebuchet and an egg drop."
E-Week is a national engineering "holiday." It is celebrated around George Washington's birthday because many engineers consider Washington an honorary engineer because he was a land surveyor before he was president.
Another main purpose of E-week is to get engineers excited about their field of interest and to show others that engineers know how to have fun.
"E-Week is kind of a celebration of nerd-dom or geekdom - whichever you prefer," Harmon said. "People are under the misconception that engineers are not social, but this is not true."
According to Harmon, E-Week used to be a celebration that was open to all UP students, but as time progressed E-Week gradually filtered down to a chili feed.
"E-Week takes a lot of work," Harmon said. "It used to involve the whole campus. This year, it is going to be more inclusive."
Several engineering clubs have committed themselves to putting in the work, and have tried to rekindle E-Week enthusiasm by revamping and jam-packing the week with fun engineering activities.
"This year's E-Week will be a huge step forward from events we've had in recent years," American Society of Civil Engineers President and senior Lars Watt said. "Rather than just one or two events, we have a week full of presentations, movies, competitions and activities with the emphasis on having engineering-themed fun."
E-Week kicked off Monday with a resumé day. Though the actual events surrounding how to build a resume, which were to be hosted by the Society of Women Engineers, ended up being canceled, students were still encouraged to go to Career Services to spruce up their resumé for the Engineering Job Fair occurring next Monday.
"Career Services is helping us to host Engineering Drop In Days and How to Work a Job Fair workshops," senior Jessica Hamilton and president of the Society of Women Engineers said.
According to Hamilton, SWE wanted to help students prepare for the career fair so that they look professional. The club wanted to encourage engineering students to think about the future and focus on essentials such as preparing the perfect resume.
Tuesday started off with a soldering sculpture workshop hosted by the Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineers, more commonly known as the "eye-triple-E" club. During this event, students were able to have hands-on experience with the soldering kits and could even solder together a sculpture to take home.
Tuesday's events also included a paper airplane contest initiated by Tau Beta Pi and a mechanical engineering discussion panel held by the Mechanical Engineering club. IEEE wrapped up the evening with a showing of movie "Ironman."
On Wednesday, the main events of the day were a chili feed and water balloon launch with senior Kevin Lockwood as the unlucky target.
Although E-Week is halfway over, there are still plenty of events coming up over the next three days. From a dry pasta structure competition in Shiley Hall today at 2 p.m. to a computer science programming and pizza party on Saturday, there are plenty of activities for students all over campus to enjoy.
"You don't have to know engineering to participate," Harmon said. "Everyone knows what spaghetti is."
Junior Carla Norris, the president of Engineers Without Borders, seconds this sentiment.
"Even if you see an event that seems a little too engineer-y for you, go ahead and try it," Norris said. "Stop by if you have a break between classes or a little time before lunch and see what we're up to."
