Concordia Engineering Network

A student engineering organization I founded in the engineering program's second year, built to give students a professional, technical, and social support network before the program was old enough to have one. It has since grown from twelve members into a voice in department decisions, from lab equipment purchases to the Industrial Advisory Board.

CUW's engineering program was entering its second year when CEN began. Rapid growth is the obvious story there, but the quieter problem is that a new program has no alumni network, no established industry pipeline, and no accumulated institutional habit of pushing students toward internships. Every student was paving their own way into industry individually. I saw a program that young as an unusual opportunity rather than a disadvantage: the structures did not exist yet, which meant students could build them.

Founding CEN meant navigating university channels to secure funding, most of it directed at hands-on technical projects rather than overhead. The harder part was persistence in recruiting. Convincing students that a brand-new program was an opening rather than a gap took repeated conversations. We started with roughly twelve members. CEN now runs professional development nights, hosts guest speakers, and maintains resources that let students build projects they actually care about.

CEN members pushed for concrete improvements to the lab and makerspace, and the department acted on them: four industry-grade 3D printers and two dedicated, full-sized lab spaces. Because the program is still taking shape, students sit at the front end of department decisions rather than hearing about them afterward. That means a genuine working relationship with the chair of engineering, and students attending administrative leadership meetings to bring their perspective directly to the Industrial Advisory Board and CUW administration. Access like that is rare at an established program, and CEN exists partly to make sure students actually use it.

CEN members are currently organizing a philanthropic build event bringing CUW students together with local high school students to adapt children's toys for patients at area children's hospitals, combining real engineering work with outreach to students who may follow us into the program. On the professional side, 7/10 of CEN's returning members secured engineering internships, working on problems that contribute directly to their companies' goals.

I learned delegation, and specifically that its purpose is not to reduce your own workload. Handing off real ownership is how you pull other students into leadership, and it is the only way an organization outlives the person who founded it.