Students attend nation’s largest gathering of Hispanic STEM professionals
Around 500 UTRGV students attended the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers National Convention from Oct. 30 to Nov. 3 in Anaheim, California,
Many of the students were awarded travel funds by the College of Engineering and Computer Science to pay for costs to attend the conference.
Hiram Moya, an associate professor for the department of Manufacturing and Industrial Engineering and a faculty adviser of SHPE at UTRGV, said the convention is the premier conference for Hispanics in STEM and hosts one of the largest career fairs in the nation with over 300 companies and 15,000 attendees.
“It is incredibly, incredibly important to bring students together to network, to get to know different leaders, to help them develop their own leadership skills,” Moya said. “A lot of people get a lot of opportunities from the conference.”
He said students can submit their resume to the company exhibitors to potentially be selected for job interviews or offers while at the conference.
“I know people that have been able to secure a job offer from the conference,” Moya said. “It’s been a very rewarding experience for everybody that is attending.”
Diego Flores Chanez, an electrical engineering sophomore, attended the conference with a scholarship from the College of Engineering and Computer Science.
Flores Chanez said he distributed his resume to several companies at the conference and received an interview offer from Cummins, which has been beneficial to his career.
“Getting an internship for engineering majors is crucial,” he said. “[Companies] expect you to have that experience, and that experience is not provided by the classes.”
Flores Chanez said he talked to many representatives from different companies and other engineering students from across the nation.
“Networking opens, like, a lot of opportunities,” he said.
Flores Chanez said he will definitely attend the next SHPE National Convention and encourages other students to do the same.
John Hinojosa, an electrical engineering sophomore, attended the conference with the help of a scholarship.
Hinojosa said he attended workshops, hospitality suites hosted by company recruiters and a career fair where he received an interview.
He believes meeting recruiters face-to-face is beneficial.
“A resume online application doesn’t say as much as the person itself,” Hinojosa said. “I think that’s what recruiters are more interested in than just my plain resume that doesn’t say the whole story.”
He said he would like to attend the next SHPE National Convention.
