Newspapers / Elon University Student Newspaper / May 19, 2018, edition 1 / Page 5
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COMMENCEMENT passing the TORCH Graduating seniors offer advice to underclassmen as a parting gift Caroline Dean Manager of Phoenix Flops @eIonnewsnetwork SATURDAY MAY 19,2018 5 College is a place where you can press the limits of your iden tity. You can mold your passions, press against your understand ing and expand your beliefs. It is somewhere where you can test out different thoughts and process them with the people around you. You are surround ed by people who are willing to listen, collaborate and challenge you. But perhaps the most im portant out of all of those are the people that will challenge you. The people who will tell you when your arguments are incom plete, when your ambitions are off base or when your passions needs redirecting. Those are the voices that you should listen to with the most respect and atten tion. Be proud of the times that you experience failure, change directions and keep moving for ward. College is about changing directions to find your true life path. So don’t be afraid to mold, innovate and craft new versions of yourself This is the time to be the most creative with your life, so expand your thinking and work to create the most incredi ble version of yourself that you can imagine. Jackie Pascale Former ENN Executive Direector @jackie_pascal8 A lot of my Elon experience has been impacted by the opportunities I’ve taken and the friends I’ve made. My advice is to say no more and also to say yes more. Because this state ment is confusing, let me explain. Elon students are notorious for overcommitting and scheduling their days up to the minute. While this can be a good thing, it’s OK to say no. Whether it’s to helping your friend edit a paper or taking on a project, you know if you have enough time to do this without getting overwhelmed. Don’t overwhelm yourself! Your friend can go to the Writing Center, and the project will turn out better if someone else can dedicate 100% of their energy to it. Remember, you’re a human who is not perfect, makes mistakes and only has 24 hours a day to work with. And sometimes, those 24 hours should be all about you. However, challenge yourself If you’re passionate about something, then take on that project. If you do what you love, it won’t feel like work. This can be a cliche statement about careers, but it also applies to your college work. Also, if there’s a trip offered with friends or to a confer ence, go on it. You will never regret experiences with your peers and mentors. Some of my favorite college memories come from spontaneous day trips, nights staying in with roommates and in-depth projects I saw through from start to finish. I wouldn’t have these memories if I didn’t say yes. So say yes, and say no. And soak up every minute of your undergradu ate career. Speaking from experience, it flies by. Rachel Hobbs SGA Secretary @elonnewsnetwork I remember first coming to Elon and being so overwhelmed by how new everything felt. In particular, I remem ber the concerning feeling of not rec ognizing anyone. As the year went on, I made friends on my hall and got to know people through my involvement. I also started to realize that Elon is a small community and I would find my self saying hi to people I had class with or met once, even if we had never had a conversation. By the end of the year, Elon felt like home. My advice to underclassmen is that if you already feel a sense of camaraderie at Elon, take the time to appreciate our community and this unique chapter of your life. I really can’t imagine another time in my life where all of my good friends will live within a 10-minute — or 10-feet — radius or when I walk in somewhere, I know I’ll recognize a few friendly faces. With that said, I recognize that some students may be struggling to feel con nected. Being involved with SGA, I’ve heard from students who feel discon nected and understand how we need to keep working to further unite our stu dent body. My advice for all students is to pursue your passions on Elon’s cam pus so you can connect with other stu dents who share that interest. More im portantly, don’t be afraid to get to know people outside of your usual friend group. It takes student leadership to tru ly bring a campus together. It is both exciting and sad to realize that my friends and I will be scattered across the country upon graduation. I will miss Elon’s people, but know that an Klon friend will never be too far away. As the famous saying goes: you can leave Elon, but Elon will never leave you. From two to four: How Elon is expanding its engineering program Program improvement I enables students to ohase tbeir dreams even further Anton L Delgado Eion News Network 1 @jaclelgadonews A new engineering program and degree are being offered at I Elon University. The College of I Arts & Sciences will be expand- I ing its engineering options next fall, from a dual-degree program to a four-year program. The school’s new four-year bachelor’s degree in engineer ing will allow students to stay at Elon and pursue their degree in engineering. Scott Wolter, the direc- I tor of the current dual-de gree engineering program, ' is looking forward to the exciting development. We are providing this de gree for our students because they basically conveyed to use I their interest in staying at Elon and getting an engineering de gree, Wolter said. “It was driven I by student interest.” The current dual-degree pro gram allows students study en- I Bbieering at Elon for three years before transferring to another institution for an additional two years to complete their degree. Wolter believes having stu- ‘ients transfer to other institu- j fions has not helped the pro- I gi'am’s growth. Many of our students fall in nve with Elon and they don’t want to leave,” Wolter said. “They like different aspects of doing their undergraduate ed ucation at Elon. They like the small class sizes, the liberal arts environment. They just like Elon because it’s a great place.” Freshman Noah Kagan is currently undeclared but is looking forward to declaring his major next fall. Having the new four-year option at Elon has made a world of difference in the aspiring engineer’s life. “I just want to finish the degree in four years because I don’t have the funds to do an additional year of college,” Ka gan said. w'. -• ‘ The idea of leaving Elon and having to pay for an additional year of school to earn his de gree worried Kagan, until the announcement of the four-year program in January. “I am so excited to stay here and not have to move, I hate moving,” Kagan said. “IVe found so many friends here and I don t want to throw all of that away if I don’t have to. By the time I would have had to transfer I would have already found my place at Elon and having to move schools would just not be the best situation.” Another of the new pro gram’s goals is to increase the w. STEPHANIE HAYS | ELON NEWS NETWORK amount of student interest in engineering. In order to have more students like Kagan, ex cited to continue engineering at Elon. For the last decade, the amount of student majors in the engineering department has been in flux. According to the Registrar’s Fall Reports, in 2007 the major had 58 students, this grew to an all time high of 81 in 2012. But since then the numbers of students majoring within the engineering department have steadily decreased, to an all time low of 22 in fall 2017. The pro gram suffered another decrease Sparks fly as fresh man Shan Roy welds metal for his new electric motorcycle, “The 1.0.” Roy plans to enroll in Elon’s new four-year engineering program next fall. this spring, with now only 13 student majoring in engineering at Elon. But Wolter is confident these numbers wiE grow with the start of this new program. “We know what we need to do, and we know what type of education our students need to succeed,” Wolter said. Another main goal of the program is to receive its Accred itation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) ac creditation within the next four years. The ABET is a non-gov ernmental organization that accredits education programs in applied natural sciences, engi neering being one of those nat ural sciences. “The important part of this change is that the program gets ABET accreditation,” Wolter said. “We are pursuing that for the program and are in the pro cess of getting this. The goal is that when we graduate our first students, we will be accredited.” The new program will offer a bachelor of science degree as well as allow students to concen trate in biomedical engineering, computer engineering, or de sign their own concentration. This focus on student inter est is a key aspect of this new program. “Elon is such a great place to be a student or a faculty mem ber,” Wolter said. “We would talk to students and figure out exactly what their interests are. Whatever they are we will work with them.”
Elon University Student Newspaper
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May 19, 2018, edition 1
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