Each year, a group of faculty and staff at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering takes part in a judging panel to select student organization recipients for the Engineering Society at UCLA’s Student Group of the Year Awards.
The four awards are each divided into two categories — small clubs with fewer than 100 members, and large clubs with 100 or more members. They are designed to recognize the eight organizations’ commitment to developing members, connecting with the community, demonstrating growth and potential, and overall excellence, respectively.
With 60 exceptional engineering student organizations each presenting its finest work over the 2021-2022 academic year, it was no easy feat for the selection process with a plethora of outstanding organizations from which to choose the following winners.
Bruin Development Award: Materials Research Society and Biomedical Engineering Society at UCLA
The award is granted to one small and one big student organization that demonstrated excellence in supporting the academic, professional and personal development of their members.
The 2022 award for small clubs went to the Materials Research Society at UCLA. With events such as class planning sessions, a career fair, lab tours and company information sessions, the UCLA chapter of the professional materials engineering society hosted programs that succeeded in providing resources for members to develop in every aspect of their lives.
The Biomedical Engineering Society at UCLA won the category’s big club award. The student organization hosted its annual career and graduate school workshops, alumni events and industry information sessions among other program offerings pivotal to the development of its members.
Community Connection Award: 3D4E and Society of Women Engineers at UCLA
The award recognizes student organizations that contributed to the UCLA engineering community and beyond through various collaborations and outreach initiatives.
3D4E at UCLA won this award in the small club category because of its beginner-friendly, computer-aided drafting and 3D printing workshops open to all UCLA students — some of which were hosted in UCLA Samueli’s Makerspace — and the group’s outreach to elementary and high schools.
The Society of Women Engineers at UCLA took home the Community Connection Award in the large club category for its annual Evening With Industry event that connects UCLA students with representatives from dozens of companies, the organization’s partnerships with Project Scientist and Girls Scouts of LA, and its Washington D.C. lobbying trip.
Rising Star Award: Bruin Formula Racing and American Society of Civil Engineers at UCLA
The award recognizes student groups that demonstrated significant growth and potential in the past year.
Bruin Formula Racing won the award as a small club, which had a successful year that saw major increases in its membership, fundraising efforts and company partnerships. The team designs and builds open-wheel race cars for national competitions at professional racetracks. This spring, Formula not only completed a competition for the first time but also managed to snag fifth place out of 48 competing teams from universities across the country.
The American Society of Civil Engineers at UCLA is the large group winner and counts among its achievements a membership increase by 50 students, a repeat of its first place standing at the annual Pacific Southwest Symposium competition and collaborations with more than 35 companies for career fairs last year.
Overall Student Group of the Year Award: National Society of Black Engineers and Association for Computing Machinery at UCLA
Two student organizations emerged as the winners of the top award for demonstrating excellence in all aspects of their club activities and embodying the True Bruin values in every way.
The National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) at UCLA won the award in the small club category. According to the judges, NSBE’s programming encompassed development and outreach efforts such as its Women in Science and Engineering Day with more than 150 female high school students from underrepresented communities, a member trip to NSBE Nationals that resulted in internship offers for multiple members in the UCLA chapter, and workshops for technical and personal development.
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) at UCLA won the award for big clubs. In the 2021-2022 academic year, ACM hosted more than 400 events ranging from projects and competitions to panels and workshops. The club also advocated for improvements to policies in the Computer Science Department regarding COVID-19, accessibility and engineering ethics, as well as equity, diversity and inclusion.
Natalie Weber contributed to this story.