Thursday, November 14th, Clements TSA and the STEP Booster Club are sponsoring STEM Career Progression to be held in the Upstairs Lecture Hall from 3:00 p.m. to 4:15 p.m.

STEM Career Progression is an opportunity for students to hear about career pathways in STEM from a panel of professional speakers. According to Darin Humes, the head of the CTE Department at Clements, its purpose is to inspire students to pursue engineering careers and insight for future careers in engineering. The program will center more on how in pursuit of these careers, students can turn their engineering degrees to a JD, MBA, Ph.D., or MD. 

This event came into fruition from the minds behind Clements TSA (Technology Student Association) and the STEP (Science, Technology, Engineering Parents) Booster Club. “It was discussed as if high school students’ understanding of engineers can progress to many different lines of work, such as lawyers, managers, medical doctors,” Pouyan Layegh, an officer from the STEP Booster Club, said. 

The panel will consist of four professional speakers: Indranil Chowdhury (JD), Dr. Jose Luis Aguirre (Phd), Dr. Dolon Das (MD), and Anthony Damiano (MBA). Each speaker has prepared a presentation about their career progression, recounting the tale of how they got an undergraduate degree in engineering and how they were able to use it to pursue other graduate degrees, not just limiting themselves to engineering fields. 

Indranil Chowdhury, a STEP officer and one of the guest speakers, plans on utilizing his time to tell the audience how his engineering degree gave him an edge when going into patent law. “They will learn how their engineering degree gives them an advantage in gaining admission into a JD program (and perhaps an advantage in admissions into MBA or Ph.D. or MD degree program if they want to pursue one of those career paths).”

After each presentation, there will be a question and answer session in which attendees can ask the speakers more detailed questions regarding their topics of interest. This session will enhance the experience of the audience and their knowledge of potential career pathways.

The President of TSA, Deepa Chowdhury, weighed in on the benefits of listening to the presentations. “I think it’s important for students to attend so they can gain an insight into how useful and engineering degree can be regardless of your major of interest.”

Attending the event will also incur in SNHS points and extra credit in engineering courses. Though because of limited occupancy, the organizers do ask that students sign up to attend first through the following link: https://tinyurl.com/STEMTSA .

TSA and STEP hope that students, of distinct backgrounds and interests, will learn valuable lessons that will aid them in their own career progressions. Layegh wants attendees to be able to see and hear from these successful engineers.

“Hopefully, students learn that engineering can help them lead to many future possibilities.”