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Engineer Your Future

Welcome to The Accelerator, a monthly e-newsletter that keeps engineering students informed and helps them connect and succeed. Here you will find the latest news affecting student life, engineering, and higher education; information on contests, grants and scholarships, and internships; tips on career planning; and interesting examples of student research. Use our drop-down Resources menu above or click on one of the Categories on the right to find a growing collection of useful sources.

Engineers Without Borders Plan Sustainable Development

When Dan Wessner, professor of politics at Regis University, asked an audience of engineering students how a mother in an impoverished nation could allow her newborn baby to become malnourished and die, he wasn’t expecting a concrete answer. He instead wanted the students to consider the sustainability needs of the people and apply those needs to their development work.

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NACME Opens Middle School-Through-College Path

In a new initiative, the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME) is working with partner institutions in New York, New Jersey, Texas, and California to propel more minority K-12 students toward careers in engineering.

NACME President Irving McPhail says promising middle school students will be helped in moving to pre-engineering courses in high school. Upon graduation, they could attend a community college that has a transfer agreement with one of NACME’s partner universities. If successful at the community college, these students could go on to earn an engineering degree from a four-year school.

Senate Bill Expands Visas for High-skilled Workers

Immigration legislation introduced this week would create, for the first time, a merit-based program to award the visa for legal permanent residents, known as a green card, based on a point system, the New York Times reports. When the merit system takes effect, five years after the bill is passed, at least 120,000 foreign-born people each year would be able to gain green cards by accumulating points based on their skills and education, as well as their family ties and the time they have lived in the United States.

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NACME Evaluates Engineering Programs at Partner Universities

Engineering schools devote a lot of time and effort to help undergraduates—particularly minority students—succeed. How well are their programs working? A new survey by the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME), America’s largest private provider of scholarships for underrepresented minority students in engineering, finds students are generally satisfied with the undergraduate engineering support features at its partner universities. The study looked at how well schools that receive funding under the NACME block-grant program implement practices shown to improve recruitment and retention of minority students in engineering.

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SBA Offers Advice for Young Entrepreneurs

The Small Business Administration is currently offering many resources for young student-entrepreneurs seeking advice on managing and growing a business. SBA offers counseling programs for students including in-class training, a free online course, assessment tools, local assistance tools, and the Start Young initiative. The Start Young Initiative is a partnership between the SBA and the Department of Labor and provides entrepreneurship training to students enrolled in the Job Corps.

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