Starting college can be intimidating, particularly for underrepresented students, such as minority and female students. Wanting to meet people that she could relate to on a cultural level and help ease the transition into college, LSU Mechanical Engineering sophomore Cheyenne White decided to become a diversity ambassador in the College of Engineering.
White, a native of Ponchatoula, La., got involved with the college’s Office for Diversity Initiatives (ODI) and became an Engineering Diversity Ambassador during her freshman year at LSU.
“I came from a city that doesn’t have a large Hispanic community, and it’s hard,” she said. “I found out about Engineering Diversity Ambassadors (EDA) through Engineering Tiger Connections (ETC). It was nice to be in a club of people from different backgrounds and ethnicities with different stories, coming together where we have a place to just talk about relatable things.”
EDAs are a student organization in which engineering students serve as ambassadors to encourage K-12 students in Baton Rouge to become engineers. Diversity ambassadors (DAs) serve as role models, mentors, and tutors while conducting engineering demonstrations, hands-on activities, and discipline talks. They are comprised of undergraduate and graduate engineering students from various engineering disciplines.
“As a diversity ambassador, one of the biggest things we do is volunteer with minority groups,” White said. “What we’ve really been focused on is girls in STEM. We do projects with them. Recently, we had a Girl Scout Engineering Day where Girl Scouts built a rocket using Mentos and Coke. It was fun because they were bringing up words like ‘quantum mechanics,’ and I was like, ‘How are you kids so smart?’”
EDA, which is funded by Shell, is part of ODI, which was created to enhance the academic environment for underrepresented and female students in the College of Engineering. One of its signature programs is ETC, which is targeted to freshmen and transfer students and focuses on building the engineering student community. Another is Women Impacting Style in Engineering (WISE), which prepares female engineering students for success by showing them how to dress and present themselves professionally. WISE also hosts an annual networking dinner and style show for female students with female professional engineer speakers.
ODI also puts on camps that are geared toward high school students who may be interested in studying engineering at LSU. The REHAMS (Recruiting Into Engineering High-Ability Multicultural Students) camp is for 10th-12th-grade male and female students from all backgrounds who want to learn about engineering during a week in the summer. Halliburton XCITE (eXploration Camp Inspiring Tomorrow’s Engineers) is for 9th-12th-grade female students who want to learn about engineering, computer science and construction management careers for a week during the summer.
There is also the LSU Bridge to Engineering Excellence (BEE) Program, which White participated in the summer before her freshman year. BEE is an online program designed to help incoming engineering students review and prepare for differential and integral calculus.
“This program [BEE] was nice because taking calculus as an incoming freshman can hit you like a ton of bricks,” White said.
There is also the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME) scholarship that is available to African American, Hispanic/Latino/, Native American/Alaskan Native students, or students who are two or more races with one being from the preceding list. White, who is of Hispanic/Latino descent, received this scholarship and even attended the NACME conference in Atlanta this month.
“I like how NACME highlighted the minority struggle, especially in things like STEM and how they offer scholarships specifically for minorities,” she said.
White believes it’s important for LSU to have ODI because it brings people together who have different mindsets.
“You don’t want everyone to think the same as you,” she said. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t have any new ideas or a fresh perspective on things.”
She offers this advice to any students thinking about joining EDA or participating in any ODI programs.
“You should definitely do it,” White said. “It’s nice to put yourself in other people’s shoes and see where they came from and learn about their culture and family. That’s what makes them who they are as a person.”
To learn more about LSU’s EDA organization, email Sarah Jones at eda@lsu.edu.
Original source can be found here.
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