Structural Forum: Connecting Students to Professional Industry
by Evan Seed
Click on the image above to view this year's Structural Forum.
Hosting over fifty companies in the largest event space that San Luis Obispo has to offer, Structural Forum is more than an average career fair. It's a full-day affair dedicated to building connections — this year's theme — between leading structural engineering professionals and budding architectural engineering students.
Coordinated by the Structural Engineers Association of California (SEAOC) and the Architectural Engineering Institute (AEI) student chapters at Cal Poly, the highly anticipated event attracts hundreds of attendees every year.
“To make this student-led event happen... it all comes from student passion,” says Alexandra Kersting, president of Cal Poly’s SEAOC chapter. “All of the students on committees have a passion for structural engineering and helping their fellow students get jobs.”
The first half of the day, otherwise known as the day program, features presentations from six distinguished individuals in the field of structural engineering. Invited to campus this year were LPA Design Studios, NCSEA AI Project Team and Arup.
After the day program, students and professionals are invited to continue the dialogue throughout the evening program, which includes a resume-free job fair, a three-course dinner banquet, and a keynote presentation.
“You get to pick a company that you’re interested in and actually sit down for a meal with them over dinner,” explains Jamie Zimmerman, Structural Forum Chair.
“It’s really an opportunity for students to have one-on-one conversations with those of us in the industry and learn from those who are really just one or two steps ahead of them,” says Kelsey Parolini (Architectural Engineering, ‘03).
Keynote speaker Michelle Kam-Biron (Architectural Engineering, ‘87) — who currently works as a senior engineer at Simpson Strong-Tie — provided the evening’s final presentation, where she spoke about her experience working with mass timber and the value of an event like Structural Forum, which provides a fundamental bridge between industry and academia.
“I’m really hoping that the students and the professionals there can capture the idea that we do it together,” echoed Ken O’Dell (Architectural Engineering, ‘89). “Hopefully, those students will walk away knowing that they are part of a larger community that’s going to sustain them throughout their career.”
