SE Solutions was pleased to recently present scholarships to two Purdue MSCE-Structures students to help defray the cost of their education. Di Chen and Harsh Nisar were the recipients of the award. This is the third year that SE Solutions has offered the scholarships.

Purdue University MSCE Students and Scholarship Winners Harsh Nisar (left) and Di Chen (right), with SE Solutions, LLC President Brian Quinn 

Di and Harsh anticipate graduating this December and are excited to start their careers in structural engineering.

Di Chen received his BSCE from Tongji University in China, and he will be finishing his MSCE this December (2014). He is interested in finding a position in structural engineering and is open to moving anywhere in the US. Di is an international student and would require work sponsorship at some point in the future (after his initial “OPT”).

Just before Di started college, the Wenchuan Earthquake (also called Sichuan Earthquake) hit China in May 2008 causing immense damage and claiming approximately 90,000 lives while injuring over 300,000. This earthquake hit about 75 miles from Di’s home. Luckily, no one from his family was hurt, but this event was why Di chose to become a structural engineer, and he was involved in the recovery events after the earthquake. Di has a perfect 4.0 GPA in the MS Program at Purdue.

For additional background on Di, please see his Linkedin profile at www.linkedin.com/pub/di-chen/91/2a9/a74 .

Harsh Nisar received his BSCE from the Indian Institute of Technology at Bombay. He is doing a master’s thesis related to developing an axisymmetric finite element for cylindrical tanks with thermal loads. Harsh will be finishing his coursework in December and hopes to have his thesis finished shortly afterwards. He would like to find a structural engineering position anywhere in the US and his passion is Solid Mechanics. Here is what Harsh had to say about Solid Mechanics…

“Solid Mechanics drew me towards structural engineering. As a high school student I was fascinated by the simplicity and universality of the principles of classical mechanics. This has only grown as I’ve gained more insight into solid mechanics, especially with respect to structural behavior. As a structural engineer one works in special cases of a far more general framework of solid mechanics. This generality remains spellbinding. The challenge is in isolating favorable behavior for a system through analysis and enforcing conditions, through design, to ensure favorable outcome.”

Harsh is an international student and would require work sponsorship at some point in the future (after his initial “OPT”). Harsh also has a perfect 4.0 GPA in the MS Program at Purdue.

For additional background on Harsh, please see his Linkedin profile at www.linkedin.com/in/harshnisar.

Would you like to use your background to help people in the Philippines?

We are helping the organization of Build Change (www.BuildChange.org) find a structural engineer to help them with their efforts in the Philippines. If you might know of someone interested in improving our world as a structural engineer in the Philippines, please let us know.

Build Change (www.buildchange.org) is an international non-profit social enterprise that designs earthquake-resistant houses in developing countries and trains builders, homeowners, engineers and government officials to build them. Build Change’s designs are affordable, culturally appropriate, and use materials and techniques that will continue to be used after our intervention is finished. Build Change has ongoing post-earthquake housing reconstruction programs in West Sumatra, Indonesia and Sichuan, China. So far, Build Change has improved the design and/or construction of over 20,000 houses worldwide.

For more information please see our Hot Job 324.

SE Solutions is excited to be assisting AISC with its event for structural engineering students at the North American Steel Construction Conference (NASCC) for the 4^th year in a row. The Students Connecting with Industry Sessions (SCIS) begins with several speakers in the morning talking about student specific issues, followed by lunch and an exhibit hall tour. The afternoon features an opportunity for students to meet one-on-one with 40 great companies involved in all different aspects of structural engineering as part of the Direct Connect networking session.

With this year’s event being in Toronto, students from both the US and Canada will be attending. Student members of AISC and CISC can attend NASCC and SCIS for no charge, and in addition, the education foundations of both AISC and CISC are offering travel reimbursements up to $175 per student. For more information on the event, please see www.aisc.org/scis.

Brian Quinn and Lisa Willard from SE Solutions will be attending NASCC April 26 – 28. If you will be attending, we hope to see you there!

SE Solutions was pleased to recently present scholarships to two Purdue MSCE-Structures students to help defray the cost of their education. Joseph (Joey) Jones, EIT and Raymond (Ray) Chou, EIT were the recipients of the awards. This is the second year that SE Solutions has offered the scholarships.

Purdue University MSCE Students and Scholarship Winners Joey Jones (left) and Ray Chou (middle), with SE Solutions, LLC President Brian Quinn

Ray received his BSCE from Purdue and will be finishing his MSCE this December (2013). He is interested in finding a position in structural engineering in the Midwest after graduating. Ray is from New London, Missouri. For additional background on Ray, please see his Linkedin profile athttp://www.linkedin.com/pub/raymond-chou/83/a23/311.

Joey received his BSCE from the University of Washington and will be finishing his MSCE this December (2013). He is interested in finding a position in structural engineering in the Northwest after graduating. Joey is from Ellensburg, Washington. For additional background on Joey, please see his Linkedin profile athttp://www.linkedin.com/pub/joseph-jones/68/450/176.

The rising costs of education and the decrease in funding available through teaching and research assistantships has made it increasingly challenging for students to afford higher education and advanced degrees. SE Solutions is happy to contribute in a small way to help Ray and Joey meet their educational goals, and we look forward to seeing them enhance the structural engineering profession.

SE Solutions hopes to continue providing scholarships to structural engineering students in the future.