San Diego MESA Alliance (SDMA) and STEP Partnership of San Diego (SPSD) activities and events:

San Diego Region Joint Planning Conference (JPC) for Engineering and Science Student Chapters – Brings together professional and student leaders from diversity focused engineering & science organizations in the San Diego region to share expectations, goals, calendars and strategies.

Location:  Hosting company (to be determined).

Occurs annually ~ August.

Academic Excellence Workshop (AEW) Facilitator Training – Allows opportunity for all MESA programs to jointly train workshop facilitators.

Location:  SDSU.

Occurs annually ~August.

Walk on Water (WOW) Competition – Teams of MESA & SPSD students design “buoyancy shoes”, and student “shoe pilots” race across the length of the pool. Competition allows students to gain experience at applying applying the engineering design process; solving open-ended problems.

Location:  Southwestern Community College.

Occurs annually ~October.

UCSD Transfer Visit – Expose program participants to 4 year institutions. Includes tours of campus, engineering and science facilities and student panels.

Location:  UCSD.

Occurs annually ~October.

SDSU Transfer Visit – Expose program participants to 4 year institutions. Includes tours of campus, engineering and science facilities and student panels.

Location:  SDSU.

Occurs annually ~October.

Shadow Day – Expose program students to professional environment by allowing them to shadow an engineer at his/her workplace for the day. Students from all MESA & SPSD sites and other SDSU programs participated.

Location:  SDSU.

Occurs annually.

SDSU Joint Professional Development Conference (JPDC) – Networking event for career opportunities.

Location:  SDSU.

Occurs annually ~October.

Leadership Summit – Bring leaders and emerging leaders from all participating programs together for joint training and networking opportunities.  StrengthsQuest was  incorporated into this year’s summit to enhance the leadership development experience.  Students were engaged to understand, develop and apply their strengths as individuals and within teams.

Location:  Indian Hills Camp in Jamul, CA.

Occurs annually ~February.

Junior Shadow Day – Brings junior/middle and senior high school MESA students to SDSU campus to ‘shadow’ an engineering or science student. This exposes the younger student to the life of a university student in hopes of recruiting to engineering/science field and to SDSU.

Location:  SDSU.

Occurs annually ~February.

Science Opportunity Day – Local Companies and colleges host information booths to expose community college students to engineering and science opportunities.

Location:  Southwestern Community College.

Occurs annually ~March.

Preliminary MESA Days – Students who participate in the MESA program work on projects that are based on math, science and engineering principles. Projects range from trebuchets, gliders and bridges, to web design and speech. There are a total of 19 projects that students can compete in. During MESA Day’s competition, all the MESA students arrive with their projects, to compete with students from other schools. Winners go on to the MESA Regional Competition!

Location:  to be determined.

Occurs annually ~February/March.

Training Academy – Local Companies provide ‘in-house’ training; students learn technical skill sets and gain professional development to enhance their employability.

Location:  Hosting company (to be determined).

Occurs annually ~Fall and ~Spring semesters.

High School Regionals MESA Days – All the wining high school teams from Preliminary MESA Days compete to decide who goes to the Nationals Competition!

Location:  to be determined.

Occurs annually ~April.

Junior Regionals MESA Days – All the wining middle and junior high school teams from Preliminary MESA Days compete to decide who goes to the Nationals Competition!

Location:  to be determined.

Occurs annually ~April.

MESA/SPSD Calculator Olympics & Robotics Challenge - Prizes sponsored by SONY and the National Science Foundation - Competition for all MESA program segments in problem-solving sessions and/or robotics competition designed to promote teamwork, engineering and problem solving skill development.

Location:  San Diego City College.

Occurs annually ~April.

MESA Year-end celebration – Informal year-end celebration for extended MESA & SPSD family – students, faculty, staff, industry and guests.

Location:  Southwestern Community College Aquatic Center at Silver Strand State Beach.

Occurs annually ~May.

Summer Team Internships – To provide students with experience in the STEM fields either by an internship with a local company or by conducting research at an institution of higher education.

Location:  Various companies (to be determined).

Occurs annually ~Summer.

Poster Workshop – Introduce the basics of creating a poster and presenting it to a dedicated audience.

Location:  to be determined.

Occurs annually ~Summer.

Interviewing, Resume, and Cover Letter Critique Workshops – These workshop(s) aim to familiarize students with the basics and formalities expected from a job interview, a resume, and cover letter.  Staff, faculty, and company representatives critique resumes and/or cover letters.

Location:  to be determined.

Occurs annually ~March.

Summer Team Internship Luncheon – Culmination of Summer Team Internships. Interns presented and were recognized for their summer projects/research in the form of poster presentations. Company hosts, supervisors, campus faculty and staff, students and their families attended.

Location:  SDSU.

Occurs annually ~August.