MESA students at San Diego City College and Southwestern Community College, MESA Engineering Program and Maximizing Science Potential students at San Diego State University can apply for a summer team internship starting NOW!

Imperial Valley Press Online staff writer Elizabeth Varin covered the Imperial Valley MESA program’s Robotics Competition in the articles, ‘Imperial County MESA program hosts robotic competition‘ and ‘MESA students more likely to head off to college than others in Imperial County‘.

The Shadow Day Program, coordinated by the San Diego MESA Alliance, matches students with employers to gain insight into technical careers. Student participants have the opportunity to observe one or more people working at a job of interest. Overall, students will observe and network with professionals, investigate a career field, clarify career goals and interests, and function within a work environment.

Through the San Diego MESA Alliance, college students will have a unique experience to witness the “real world” of work in an engineering or scientific environment. Your involvement will provide a great opportunity for our up and coming students to “test the waters” in a field of their interest and see first-hand how classroom skills relate to the workplace.

What better way to do that, than observe and work with a professional in action! You the employer, get to make a positive impact on the lives of students; future engineers and scientists!

More information can be found at http://www.engineering.sdsu.edu/mep/ShadowDay.htm

The San Diego MESA Schools Program MESA Days’ competitions are coming up in 2010. Please refer to the flyer below for more information on how to volunteer for the competitions.

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.

This unique conference is expected to enhance the professional development of tomorrow’s leaders. The purpose of the conference was to improve chapter effectiveness, improve communication between stakeholders – students, industry and MESA staff, and promote leadership development. The conference addressed chapter basics, joint planning, community college-university-industry relationships, ethics, and leadership training. See the conference agenda for specific sessions.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to the San Diego MESA Alliance (SDMA) provided stipends for 36 student interns (12 students in MESA/MEP program at each campus – San Diego City College, San Diego State University, and Southwestern Community College) this summer at various projects in science and engineering firms in, but not limited to, San Diego. Some companies decided to compensate the interns themselves separate of our provided stipend and thus allow other students opportunities to partake in an internship.

The 16th Annual Calculator Olympics and Robotics Challenge event was held on Saturday, April 18th, 2009 at San Diego City College.

Teams consisting of MESA students at San Diego State University (SDSU), San Diego City College (SDCC), Southwestern Community College (SWC), and participating schools from Imperial Valley and San Diego MESA Schools Programs competed against each other in exams that included Calculus, Physics, Chemistry, and some Engineering material.

Each school was also allowed 1-2 teams who would program a LEGO Mindstorm NXT robotics kit to compete in2 missions. The first mission required speed and intelligence to maneuver through each checkpoint correctly. The second mission was a head-to-head competition in that robots raced to collect the most LEGO pieces under a constrained area and time limit.

Caltrans, via their headquarters and transportation management center, provided ‘in-house’ training; students learned technical skill sets and gained professional development to enhance their employability.