Student Benefits

How will S-PACs and S-PAVes help me?

• Gain insight into topics pertinent to your career, such as financial planning, career growth, and entrepreneurship; 
• Learn valuable management and planning skills;
• Become aware of employers' expectations;
• Grasp a better understanding of how IEEE works for engineers; and
• Find out what other resources are available from IEEE

Quotes from Students

“Organizing an S-PAC allowed me to begin thinking beyond my academic goals and begin building the necessary skills for a successful career.” Shelley Odgers, Portland State University, 1998.

“Our S-PAVe filled in the information gaps left by classroom studies.  The mock interviews were with real corporate representatives, and provided us with valuable feedback on how corporations actually evaluate candidates.” John Wiley III, Purdue University, 1998.
 

Success Stories

Success Story:  Portland State University S-PAC, February 1998

 We have a small branch, so our branch executive committee was also our S-PAC planning committee.  Our space was a local pasta restaurant that had reasonable food, a nice atmosphere, and a back room where we could set up our overhead projector.  We advertised a month in advance, and closed ticket sales three days before the event with seventy percent of the members signed up to attend.

We chose three topics that complimented each other and made a well-rounded program.  Our first guest was a local investment broker who spoke on the topic of benefits packages and investment management.  His talk got everyone excited about that day in the near future when each of us would understand the phrase “expendable income.”  Our next guest was a national speaker who spoke about the shelf life of a bachelor’s degree in engineering and the importance of continually seeking higher education.  And just as the importance of this message sunk in, our third speaker presented a message about defining personal success and remembering to be happy. 

The students members of our branch enjoyed the conference and considered it a significant membership benefit and education enhancement. 

Case Studies

Case Study:  S-PAVe in a month.  Portland State University, April, 1998

We really wanted to have a mock interview S-PAVe, but there was about a month left before we elected new officers and finished the school year.  So, we put our noses to the grindstone and discovered that the biggest part of the S-PAVe paperwork was getting over the fear of it and just getting to work.  The proposal was easy once we calmed down and followed the steps.  One of the challenges of writing the proposal was to understand that its purpose is to describe an event that has yet to occur, so some of it is good guess work. 

 Once we made a good proposal, the tasks fell into place.  Our milestones were close together due to the short lead time, so we had to stay on track.  According to our proposed plan, we needed help from industry.  Our Student Branch Mentor helped us find industrial representatives to conduct the workshop. 

 We had one, centrally located sign-up sheet so that we didn’t have any scheduling problems, and the schedule grid was full on the day we held the workshop.  With so little lead time, the space we found was less than ideal, and the interviewers were closely packed.  We had positive feedback from the students, but were able to learn how to make the workshop run better from the feedback forms the students completed as they left.

 We learned a lot about the process of conducting a workshop, both from making mistakes and from receiving feedback from the student interviewees and the industry representatives.  For one, having a perfect proposal isn’t as important as having a thoughtful and intelligent proposal that is well presented.  When we met with the interviewers to give them an introduction to the workshop, our instructions on the format of the interviews weren’t clear enough and consequently there was a variety of interpretations.  For future workshops, we will develop a worksheet so that the interviewer can have a guideline for each student session, as well as something to give the student.  In the future we will make reservations for a bigger space well in advance so that the interviewers are not crammed together.

 Overall the experience was priceless, both for the committee members who got the experience of planning the workshop and the students who attended. 

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Last Update: 22 July 2010
Contact: Sandra Kim, sandra.kim@ieee.org