The 13th Annual San Diego MESA Alliance Leadership Summit took place at the Indian Hills Camp in Jamul on the weekend of February 28 – March 2, 2014.
39 MESA/MESA Engineering Program (MEP)/Maximizing Science Potential (MSP) students from San Diego City College, San Diego State University, Southwestern College, and various high schools in the San Diego and Imperial Valley MESA Schools Programs participated in various competitions that promoted the use of their leadership skills and various strengths attributes.
A Strengths Quest seminar was presented by Mr. Rafael Alvarez consisting of Reviewing Strengths (resulting from an online Strengths Quest survey via the Gallup Organization), a Scavenger Hunt, Common Strengths lecture, and a homework assignment on visual expression. Students broke into teams to complete a LEGO challenge.
Mr. Rafael Alvarez continued the Strengths Quest seminar with lectures on how to connect strengths to future planning and life/career goals, as well as a workshop on creating a cover/interest letter(s). SDSU MEP and SDCC MESA alumna and current industry member from Pratt & Whitney AeroPower, Ms. Maria Charles, was the featured guest speaker to continue the second day of activities.
In collaboration with the National Science Foundation funded Engineering Research Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering, students completed a team challenge consisting of building a prosthetic hand.
The last day was reserved for the conclusion of the team challenge which consisted of conducting a PowerPoint presentation on specific topics, as the annual Leadership Summit came to an end.
A very special thanks goes to Ms. Maria Charles for her attendance and continued support of the MESA program. Another very special thanks goes to Atkins Global Inc. for allowing the Leadership Summit to take place with its grant award to SDSU MEP. Without this grant award, the 2014 Leadership Summit would not have taken place.
Photo gallery (courtesy Jose Islas):
