Last Saturday, NC State’s Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers chapter hosted a lively retreat with students from other UNC-System universities. 

Although this weekend’s event was held at a much smaller scale, it was packed full of professional skill building workshops led by Flores. From “Selling SHPE” to “How to land your Dream Internship/ Career,” the vice president and motivational speaker volunteered valuable information to all of the attending members. During his speech he reinforced the idea that a love of work above all was most important when it came to personal success.

“Failure is a valuable lesson, but too many people are afraid to learn it,” Flores said.

There were also round table discussions on how to improve the rate of retention of high school and middle school students interested in STEM, through the creation of SHPE junior chapters in local schools. SHPE undergraduate members planned to come together and unify their efforts when it came to organizing their individual chapters and gaining and retaining members within their own institutions, as well.

The day culminated with dinner from Carmen’s Cuban Café in Morrisville.

SHPE’s Subregional Retreat took place in Mann Hall from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Around 30 people were in attendance, and students came from NC State, North Carolina A&T University and UNC Charlotte, a few professional SHPE members and Region 7 Vice President, Jay Flores. Region 7 includes universities with SHPE chapters from Florida, Georgia and both North and South Carolina.

SHPE Region 7 vice student representative and junior in industrial engineering, Yaseline Muñoz, coordinated the event with the help of an event committee consisting of Flores, graduate student Milena Bobea and SHPE executive board members Josue and Diana Alcaraz. Muñoz also planned the largely successful Regional Leadership Conference, which was hosted on Centennial Campus earlier this year and welcomed students from all over region 7.